The Lord Chancellor: Leave of Absence

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, before business begins, may I take the opportunity to inform the House that I will be undertaking a ministerial visit to Edinburgh on Monday 19 December and a private engagement on Tuesday 20 December? I trust that the House will grant me leave of absence.

Interest Charges: Store Cards

Baroness Greengross: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they intend to include provision in the Consumer Credit Bill to prevent store card providers charging interest on the full statement value from the date of first purchase, in circumstances where the card-holder has already paid off most of the balance.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, there are no plans to include any provisions in the Consumer Credit Bill that would address the specific issue raised by the noble Baroness. However, in 2004, regulations came into force that require lenders to give consumers clear information about the key features of credit products, including the way in which interest is treated.
	The Consumer Credit Bill will also improve consumers' rights by giving them more effective options to challenge unfairness in credit relationships, and to resolve disputes with lenders. It will also improve the powers of the Office of Fair Trading to take action against lenders who exploit or harm consumers.

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Would he be prepared to look particularly at store cards that induce customers to believe that there is an interest-free credit period but do not say, except in the smallest of print—which I cannot read—that this only applies if the entire amount borrowed is paid off? This can result in customers paying interest as high as an APR of 70 to 80 per cent on the outstanding sum. Would the Minister not agree that this is scandalous and very unfair, and that some financial health warning, similar to the health warnings on tobacco packages, should clearly be written on application forms for this type of credit card?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, it is difficult for the Government to get into the position of trying to specify all the terms under which money is lent because that is likely to stifle competition and consumer choice. Our concern is to make certain that there is real transparency and we have brought in regulations to do that.
	Noble Lords will also be aware that the Competition Commission inquiry into store cards has put forward some ideas about action that might be taken including an APR warning notice, where APR exceeds a specified threshold, but that is just one of the initial suggestions.

Lord Lawson of Blaby: My Lords, while I am not normally in favour of government regulation where it can be avoided, might there not be a case, particularly for those of us of a certain age, for saying that print below a certain size is not legally binding?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, it would be difficult to ascertain exactly what that level would be on a universal basis. Getting into that level of detail is exactly where regulation tends to go wrong.

Lord Higgins: My Lords, how does making things more transparent stifle competition?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, it is generally accepted that the basis of competition should be that consumers have a clear idea of the actual products they are buying. Transparency is therefore key to this.

The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, what can the Minister do to ensure that the principal terms of trade are printed boldly so that they can easily be understood?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, as I pointed out, the Consumer Credit (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2004 set out in great detail what should be included in agreements.

Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, I may be able to help the Minister in relation to the question asked by my noble friend about the size of print, some of which is very small. Most people take a newspaper; why cannot agreements be printed in that size print?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, specifying that documents have to be printed in a particular size print is probably over-regulation. After all, if print is very small, there are technical means, such as glasses and magnifying glasses, that can deal with it.

The Lord Bishop of Salisbury: My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister remembers when banks issued cards with the legend, "Access takes the waiting out of wanting"? Is he prepared to continue to justify leading some of the more vulnerable people in our society into overspending when there are means, which would not wholly reduce the unbridled competition that he so clearly desires, that could be put into effect?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, it is important that lenders behave responsibly when lending. Action has been taken to make certain that that happens. APACS is looking at ways to ensure that lenders adhere to the banking code, and its best practice guidelines stop lenders lending to vulnerable people by sharing data and so on. That seems to be the way that we should deal with this issue, rather than trying to specify all the details on lending, because once one does that, one has to specify everything. If one hole is stopped up by, say, putting a cap on interest, it simply leads to action in other areas and that would not only stifle competition but would also lead to incredible bureaucracy.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, why is it inappropriate to include in the Bill clear guidelines within which a creditor should keep so that all parties know where they stand and the creditor can be confident of not being in breach of the unfairness provisions? Further, would the Minister not agree that the amendments we moved in Committee in relation to the unfair relationship provisions would have clarified the position in situations similar to that referred to by the noble Baroness?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, we covered this in Committee. I hope that we made it clear that if we were to specify every kind of unfair relationship it would not be future-proof and it not would capture the next areas of unfair relationships. Therefore, a broad definition is a much better way to approach this matter.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that a meeting between him and the relevant parties ought to be arranged as soon as possible? When I was in the Department of Trade and, later, in the Department of Trade and Industry, we frequently arranged such meetings on an informal basis. Why is that not possible now?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, we continue to have regular meetings on these issues. We produced a series of regulations covering these issues last year and we are now considering the Consumer Credit Bill which deals with these issues. A great deal of discussion is going on about them.

Ministerial Code

Lord Jopling: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether any action has been taken to review the Ministerial Code, in the light of the reported comments of the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that the code needs immediate review.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it is normal practice for the Ministerial Code to be updated and reissued after an election. A revised Ministerial Code was published in July 2005. It took account of comments and recommendations made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the Public Administration Select Committee. The Government do not see a need for a further review of the code.

Lord Jopling: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is it not clear to everyone, including the chairman of the committee, that the code and the practice need urgently to be reviewed? When will the Government's familiar policy of dither, delay and review over a number of things end? Should we not be thinking of going further? Do the Government really think it is right that Ministers whose behaviour causes them to resign seem too often to go through a period of prosperous penitence and then get reappointed to important positions in the public sector? Does the Minister agree that there would be more respect for the code and more public respect for both Parliament and politicians if the rule for Ministers who resign in these circumstances is "once out, stay out"?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I cannot agree with the noble Lord. It is a matter very much for the Prime Minister to decide who forms part of his government. To seek to constrain the formation of government in the way the noble Lord suggests would deny the Prime Minister the ability to appoint those with the ability to do the job in the right way.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, why do we not simply transfer responsibility for policing the Ministerial Code to the Commissioner for Standards in the House of Commons, who is an officer of Parliament, and have an end to all this argument about enforcement?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, as the Prime Minister has made pretty clear on a number of occasions, the Prime Minister must be the ultimate judge of the standard of behaviour expected of a Minister.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Well, my Lords, I think rightly so because, ultimately, the Prime Minister should be held to account for the actions of his Ministers. I would have thought that was a very important principle in the way we govern our country.

Lord Tugendhat: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, though of course the Prime Minister should have complete freedom of action, no past Prime Minister has been so bereft of talent that he has been obliged to reappoint people who have departed from his Cabinet so very soon afterwards, not once but twice?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord is really not asking that question seriously. I think that our Government have been full of talent. They continue to do the job which the public expect and to command widespread public support.

Lord McNally: My Lords, the Minister has just given a significant reply. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, last week pontificated that this was a matter for Parliament. Will the noble Lord confirm that responsibility for the Ministerial Code is the Prime Minister's direct responsibility? That being so, he does not need the Leader of the House to tell him. The Prime Minister himself takes great pride in being the Minister responsible. Why, therefore, is the Prime Minister refusing to publish Sir Patrick Brown's report? Why is the Prime Minister rejecting the ninth report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which asks for an independent adviser for this code? Why is the Prime Minister refusing a Standing Committee to examine breaches of the code? Will he now admit that the problems are at the Prime Minister's door and that the noble Lord, Lord Soley was—not for the first time in his political career—wrong?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I rather like my noble friend Lord Soley. I think that he tends to be right on most issues, actually. I have known him for a long time, as I am sure the noble Lord has.
	Let us start with the Sir Patrick Brown review. The Prime Minister commissioned a review from Sir Patrick Brown. That review has been completed. The report has been submitted and we are giving it very careful consideration and will respond in due course. The Business Appointment Rules are important. They were set up during the Conservative administration in the mid-1990s and have worked well to date. We do not expect that there will be great problems with the way they work. They have been very helpful and will continue to be helpful.
	The noble Lord asked about the independent adviser on ministerial interests. Again, we have done a great deal, as government, to strengthen the handling of Ministers' financial interests, including the requirement to provide Permanent Secretaries with a list of those interests. It is not an easy appointment to fill. Whoever is appointed will need to understand how government and Parliament work. On the noble Lord's first question, obviously it is for the Prime Minister to determine who are members of his Government and to make judgments about their suitability. It is also a matter for Parliament.

Lord Soley: My Lords, I was about to suggest that we went back to basics on this, but another Conservative government brought that term into disrepute. Why is it that we get into a muddle on this? It has always been clear in the British constitution, under successive governments, that the Prime Minister is responsible for appointing Ministers and for their conduct in office. But Parliament is and remains responsible for the conduct of Members of Parliament. If you confuse those two, you confuse the whole concept of the constitution because the Government are drawn from Parliament and governments answer to Parliament, not the other way round.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, not for the first time I find myself in agreement with my noble friend Lord Soley.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, it is all very well for the code to cover Ministers en poste. Does the Minister agree that the trouble, surely, is that there is no sanction for Ministers post poste?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, strictly speaking that is true, but no doubt people will form a judgment on people's behaviour which will affect their future careers and aspirations. That is a very important check.

EU: Charter of Fundamental Rights

Lord Willoughby de Broke: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What is their response to the European Union Commission requirement contained in document COM (2005) 172 that the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights must be enshrined in all new European Union legislation.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the Commission communication seeks to improve the way in which the Commission ensures its own compliance with fundamental rights. The communication does not change the legal status of the charter, which remains a non-legally binding document setting out existing rights. The charter reaffirms rights already agreed by the member states in previous international human rights treaties, which include the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The communication lays down a sensible and transparent procedure.

Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for that reply. Surely, the document deals specifically with the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was part of a constitution that was knocked on the head by two member states in referenda. Do the Government believe that the constitution is dead and that, therefore, the charter is dead with it? If so, could the Minister please encourage the Commission to stop messing around by breathing life into a corpse, but to do something useful such as getting its accounts approved by the auditors for the first time in 12 years?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, some of the noble Lord's question was a bit wide of the mark. As I said in my Answer, the charter lays down existing rights; it is not a legally binding document. For example, it includes rights such as everyone's right to life, which we would accept from other documents. It is perfectly sensible for the Commission to produce a document that says, "When we are thinking of legislating, we will make sure that we have complied with these fundamental rights". That is perfectly sensible and it is right that it says how it is done in every case.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that the Charter of Fundamental Rights is independent of the constitutional treaty and that it continues notwithstanding the two adverse referenda in two member countries, and, furthermore, that this Government and members of other parties have strongly supported the practice of the Commission in getting impact assessments of what legislative proposals it has been advancing, and that impact on fundamental rights must inevitably be one of the considerations that it has in mind?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the charter was completely separate from the constitution. The constitution referred to the charter, but the charter was a document agreed quite separately from the constitution. I also agree that it is right and proper for the Commission, when considering proposals it makes for legislation, to measure up that proposed legislation with what the charter says. The charter contains rights, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right not to be tortured, that we would all agree with.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, is not this charter the one that a Minister of the Crown in this Government described as about as important as Beano? If that is the view of the Government—I believe that the Prime Minister was vehemently against the charter's inclusion, in any form, in the constitution—can we be assured by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that any future draft treaty that this Government put forward for new rules for Europe, to replace the defunct constitutional treaty, will exclude the charter completely?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am certainly not going to tie the Government's hands in any future negotiations. I have made clear that the document is non-legally binding. However, I regard the rights contained in it as extremely important.

Lord Blackwell: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that the reason the Government originally opposed the charter was that it includes a wide range of social rights as well as civil rights? Against that background, does he agree with the comment in the report of the House of Lords European Union Committee on human rights proofing EU legislation, that:
	"The Community courts will, in practice, have regard to the Charter when determining those fundamental rights that form an integral part of the general principles of law. The Charter is thus being used as an authoritative source in identifying and defining fundamental rights at the EU level"?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the Government opposed it being made a legally binding document because in their view, those rights that should have legally binding effect already do so in this country, while it would be inappropriate to incorporate into our law those that do not. The noble Lord is correct to say that from time to time the European Court of Justice does refer to the charter.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, does not the noble and learned Lord agree that the Charter of Fundamental Rights is being taken forward by the Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna? I have here two Written Answers from his colleagues which give as the legal basis for those initiatives Article 308 of the treaty establishing the European Communities. Is he aware that Article 308 justifies action only,
	"in the course of the operation of the common market".
	How does the noble and learned Lord think that that is an adequate basis for this whole initiative?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, the Fundamental Rights Agency does not yet exist. There is already a body in Vienna which looks at what the European institutions do. Further agreement has yet to be reached on the Fundamental Rights Agency.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, this seems to be the day of the Independents in your Lordships' House. Is the noble and learned Lord quite certain that the charter has no legal force? Further, can he assure us that it is not in any way justiciable before the European Court of Justice? We have seen the European Court move things on of its own volition, with dire effects—the latest being in regard to Marks & Spencer on the Chancellor's problems with the deficit. Can he give us an absolute assurance that the ECJ cannot judge matters in this charter?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I would say that it is the day in the House of Lords of the extremely committed. As I made clear in my response to the extremely committed noble Lord over there, from time to time the European Court does refer to the charter, but I make it clear that it is not legally binding in this country.

NHS Funding: Patient Care

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What plans they have to ensure that any long-term National Health Service deficit does not adversely affect patient care.

Lord Warner: My Lords, there is no long-term NHS deficit. In 2004–05, there was an overall deficit of around £250 million, 0.4 per cent of the budget, compared with £460 million in 1996–97, 1.5 per cent of the budget. Given the record levels of investment that this Government have made in the NHS, all NHS organisations should be able to live within their available resources, and the great majority are. Fifty per cent of the current in-year forecast deficit relates to 23 organisations out of 566. Turnaround teams are assisting organisations with the largest deficits to improve their performance. We expect the NHS to return to overall balance next year.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but I do not quite understand it. As we all know, at the present time the primary care trusts are largely in deficit. The Minister has no doubt seen the article by Professor Bosanquet which said that there will be a gap of £6.8 billion by 2010. The Minister has denied that that will be so. But if that is true, why did the chief executive of the National Health Service, in response to the Bosanquet article, state in a letter the following day that his report to the NHS made clear that we are committed to reducing costs by £6.5 billion a year by 2008? I cannot understand why the Minister would want to cut costs if there is not likely to be a deficit.

Lord Warner: My Lords, any prudent government will look for efficiency and productivity improvements in the public services, including the NHS. The chief executive's statement about £6.5 billion savings relates to the Gershon inquiry report. The NHS has committed itself, through the department, to saving £6.5 billion by the end of 2007–08. We are a long way along that path because, as the chief executive also announced, we have saved £1.7 billion to date.

Lord Chan: My Lords, would the Minister then care to explain why there is this merger of primary care trusts which will definitely save hundreds of millions of pounds and the likely closure of a number of strategic health authorities?

Lord Warner: My Lords, we are consulting on a reduction in the number of strategic health authorities and possible changes in the boundaries of PCTs. We committed ourselves to saving £250 million in this area in our manifesto and we will move forward on that. That will be more money for front-line services. The PCT changes will also strengthen commissioning in the NHS, as has recently been made clear in a number of ministerial statements to that effect.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, can we be quite certain that hospitals within the National Health Service are not using lifestyle and age to refuse operations to cover up a shortage of money? While the Minister is on his feet, will he say whether he believes that it is right that people's lifestyles should preclude them from treatment, bearing in mind that they have paid their contributions through their tax?

Lord Warner: My Lords, that is rather wide of the Question. However, there is no evidence that people are being refused treatment in these circumstances. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has made clear its views in making its assessments in relation to social values.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, how much will the Department of Health spend on the consultants who are to be sent into trusts in deficit in order to enable them to achieve turnaround?

Lord Warner: My Lords, I did not hear the beginning of the question. As I understood the noble Baroness, she was asking me about turnaround teams. The turnaround teams are going into the most challenged establishments with deficits, most of which have had deficits for three to four years. Members of the teams are management experts and financial experts and they are making sure that these organisations can work their way through to balance as quickly as possible.

Lord Ackner: My Lords, have the Government made any estimate of the effect of the embargo on non-serious operations on the NHS deficit? If the deficit is not cleared off, will it be carried forward into the next fiscal year?

Lord Warner: My Lords, all deficits are carried forward into the next financial year. That is a long-standing practice. Not to do so would mean that people could go on spending other people's money without any consequences. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State made clear the position on deferred operations, but she did so in the context that all hospitals will achieve a maximum waiting time of six months by the end of this year, compared with the 18 months' waiting time when this Government came to office.

Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I naturally accept the figures that my noble friend put forward on expenditure on the health service. However, I am constantly in touch with primary care trusts that are refusing deaf people cochlear implants. Time and time again, surgeons refer cases to me. I get in touch with the PCT but it says, "We are sorry. We are short of money. We are in debt". Time and time again, these letters come to me. There is evidence of people being refused treatment. What can my noble friend do about that?

Lord Warner: My Lords, as my noble friend knows, we have delegated responsibility for these hugely increased budgets which have been provided by the Government to people at the local level. It is up to them to make their judgments about local priorities within national standards and within national targets. I sympathise with the points he has made, but it is down to people at the local level to make these decisions.

Earl Howe: My Lords, is not the difference between today and 1997 that in 1997, and until recently, there were mechanisms in the system which afforded trusts a measure of flexibility when they were running a deficit, whereas today Ministers are saying that trusts in deficit will not be bailed out? Was not, therefore, the King's Fund right last week to say that what the health service urgently needs are mechanisms to deal with hospital failure if and when that happens, and those mechanisms simply do not exist at the moment?

Lord Warner: My Lords, the main difference is that in 1997 we were spending about £30 billion on the NHS and now we are spending £70 billion on it and moving towards the European average. The other difference is that we are being transparent about poor performance and exposing these deficits, rather than the smoke and mirrors system which operated on NHS finances in an earlier day.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords—

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, far be it from me to support the Liberal Democrats, but the Minister failed to answer the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and I am interested in ministerial answers. She was asking about the costs of the management teams which are sent in to failing authorities.

Lord Warner: My Lords, I apologise; as I said, I did not hear the noble Baroness's question correctly. Now that I have had it elucidated to me, I must say that the cost is commercially in confidence.

Consolidated Fund Bill

Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the certificate of the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, and read a first time.

Identity Cards Bill

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
	Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Scotland of Asthal.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.
	House in Committee accordingly.
	[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
	Clause 8 [Issue etc. of ID cards]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 141:
	Page 7, line 18, leave out from "used" to end of line 21 and insert "where necessary in the public interest"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Amendment No. 141 and the first amendment in the next group to be debated, Amendment No. 145, are probing in nature. There are several parts of the Bill, I think it fair to say, which bamboozle a lot of us, and if they bamboozle us, they will certainly bamboozle the great British public if the legislation emerges in its present state.
	Amendment No. 141 seeks an explanation from the Government about what is meant by Clause 8(2)(b). Clause 8 deals with the issue of identity cards; it starts by saying what an identity card is. Subsection (1)(a) states that an identity card,
	"is issued to an individual by the Secretary of State"
	and that it records registrable facts—so far, so good. Subsection (2)(b) then says that it carries data,
	"enabling the card to be used for facilitating the making of applications for information recorded in a prescribed part of the individual's entry in the Register, or for otherwise facilitating the provision of that information to a person entitled to be provided with it".
	I am an old dog, legally speaking, and I have laboured hard to understand quite what that concatenation of Latinate words means, but I am still baffled. I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness says and I hope that her brief is of limpid clarity.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: What does that mean?

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The noble Lord should not come from Brighton; then he would understand what it means.
	Who makes the application and who responds to it? Applications for information are made by whom? What will the Government prescribe in terms of individual entries? This whole clause is riven by references to prescription of this and that, which means that we do not have in front of us all the detail, which all comes hereafter. Will the Government undertake not to allow third-party access to paragraph 9 information—the highly sensitive information referred to in paragraph 9 of the first schedule—except where expressly allowed by the Bill? Finally, what does the last phrase mean? With that, I think that I have bamboozled the Minister if I have not bamboozled everyone else. I beg to move.

The Earl of Northesk: It may be convenient to the Committee if I speak to my two amendments in this group. My purpose here is to delete paragraph (b) of Clause 8(3) via Amendment No. 143 and substitute it with the text of Amendment No. 142.
	At first blush, this might strike one as an idiotic thing to do. After all, it is to be supposed that a principal motivation in having encrypted data on the actual ID card is to provide appropriate protections against the possibility of it being forged or used fraudulently. But there is another side to the coin. Given current drafting, the individual has no means of satisfying himself that the information about himself on the ID card is accurate and proportionate. Indeed, in many ways there seems to be a similar lacuna in respect of information in the register. To that extent, encrypted data on the card could create a degree of ambivalence about whether it would be Data Protection Act compliant.
	Moreover, if the scheme is to be "convenient"—I make no apologies for returning to this theme—and trusted by the public, transparency and accountability need to be built into every aspect of the scheme. It is therefore wholly reasonable to suppose that the individual should be empowered to know what information about him appears on the card. Logically, if encrypted data are used, the individual has no ready means of accessing or reading the material to satisfy himself of its veracity. In effect, the card would lack appropriate levels of transparency and accountability. With that in mind, there is a legitimate argument that encrypted data should not be permitted. Against that background, I hope the Minister can offer me some comfort on the point.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Although I hope that I will be as lucid as the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, would like, I confess that on my third day at the Dispatch Box, lucidity is something to which I cannot proclaim to still have hold.
	Amendment No. 141 reflects a misunderstanding of subsections (1) and (2) of Clause 8. Those subsections do not confer any power to use the card or the information on it for particular purposes. Those issues are dealt with in other parts of the Bill. Subsection (1) contains the definition of an identity card, so if a card meets the description of both paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (2), it is within the definition of an ID card in subsection (1) and it is therefore an ID card for the purposes of the Bill. I invite the noble Lord's attention for that purpose to Clause 43(1). It is necessary because an ID card may take a number of forms; for example, a stand-alone identity card or a document such as a residence permit for third country nationals. It will be within the definition of an ID card if it is issued by the Secretary of State or as part of or with a designated document, so it records registrable facts and can be used to check against the information in the register.
	Amendments Nos. 142 and 143, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, would have the effect that the ID card would not be able to contain any information of which the individual to whom the card was issued was unaware and would not be able to contain any information in an encrypted form. I assure your Lordships that we have no intention of storing identity information on the ID card that is not known to the individual. There will be some technical information on the card's chip that we do not envisage revealing in explicit detail to the individual. Such information concerns the card's security features and its ability to be read by specific card readers—and the reasons for that are absolutely clear. But that information certainly contains no additional identity information and, if I may respectfully say so, that technical data is nothing new. Such features are absolutely common in the use of credit or debit cards today and are central to how the cards function.
	The encryption of information stored on the ID card is necessary to ensure that data on the card's chip is secure and that approved readers alone are able to access it for clearly designed purposes. For example, without encryption the ID card would not meet International Civil Aviation Organisation standards for basic and enhanced access control to information on the chip of the card, and therefore would not be valid for travel. Additionally, without encryption, the possibility of implementing remote authentication technology with a potential of combating identity fraud for those using the Internet would be lost, as important technical information on the chip would be completely unprotected.
	With that lucid explanation, I hope that the noble Lord and the noble Earl will be satisfied.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am sure that I speak on behalf of all noble Lords when I say that we pity the noble Baroness for being at the Dispatch Box for a third day running, dealing with heavy legislation. I forgive her, therefore, for the fact that her lucidity did not extend to the questions that I asked. But rather than labour the matter here, the best thing would be to have a conversation outside this place with her officials and to get to the bottom of exactly what the card can be used to verify and under what circumstances. I shall not labour the matter any further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 142 to 144 not moved.]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 145:
	Page 7, line 35, at end insert "and who has consented to be issued with an ID card"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: This amendment relates to Clause 8, which, as the Minister said, is to do with the issue of ID cards. Subsection (5) says that in "prescribed cases"—and here is another example of vast shoals of secondary legislation to come, because those cases will be prescribed in the future—
	"an ID card may be issued to an individual who—
	(a) is not required to be issued with one; but"—
	and this is the point—
	"(b) is an individual about whom the prescribed registrable facts are recorded in the Register".
	My amendment goes on to say,
	"and who has consented to be issued with an ID card".
	It seems wrong to me that a citizen can have an ID card thrust on him or her and that that would be the case, without the words that I seek to insert. One could have a situation in which this clause is used instead of Clause 6 to foist—one might say—identity cards on anyone whom the Secretary of State likes, provided of course that he has prescribed that in the way required by the clause.
	The provisions under the clause that will give the details of prescription in this and many other subsections will be introduced under negative procedure, which gives Members of this Chamber the least chance to effectively amend or overturn a statutory instrument. I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Amendment No. 146 is a modest, probing amendment. It has been degrouped and therefore I can explain it briefly. It would give a United Kingdom citizen the right to return or destroy any identity card issued to him in those cases where he is not required to be registered but is issued with an ID card.

Lord Hylton: Looking slightly backwards to a previous amendment, would the Minister be very kind and consult draftsmen to see whether Clause 8(2)(b) could be improved in any way and made clearer?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I shall deal first with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. We believe that the clause is clear, but I am very happy to look at it—as I have indicated throughout—and come back. We think that it has clarity, for the reasons I gave, but I shall happily look at it again.
	On Amendment No. 145, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, that we have no intention of forcing ID cards on people who are not eligible and who do not want them. It is anticipated that ID cards would be issued to individuals not required to be issued with them only in particular circumstances; for instance, Irish residents who work in Northern Ireland, others of any nationality who spend frequent periods, but shorter than three months, in the United Kingdom who would find that useful, or United Kingdom nationals who have been working abroad but return to take up permanent residence. They might wish to have the benefit of an ID card. In each case it may be convenient to the individual to have an ID card. Although they could not insist that the Secretary of State of the day issue them with an ID card, he may decide to do so. This provision would enable the Secretary of State to do so.
	Amendment No. 146, which I understand is probing in nature, would allow a UK citizen to return or destroy the card. I assure the noble Baroness that we do not see a need for that amendment. It is possible that a United Kingdom national who is resident in the Republic of Ireland and who commutes to work in the UK may wish to have an ID card for convenience, in much the same way as an Irish resident that I mentioned in relation to the previous amendment, might do. Again it is for the convenience of the individual and the card will have been issued only at the request of the individual, so it is hard to see why they should object to receiving it. I hope that the Committee will feel content with that clarification.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for what she said but I am a little baffled because it seems to me that the class of individual to whom she referred is covered by Clause 8(4)(a). That refers to ID cards being issued to an individual if he is entitled to be registered. I thought that the noble Baroness was talking about individuals who did not have to register compulsorily but were entitled to be registered; that is, voluntarily.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I give the example of a UK national who has not been resident here for some time but has been resident in the Cayman Islands for the past 10 years. He comes back and would not fulfil the three months' residence criteria but may wish to have an ID card almost immediately before the three months' residence criteria were fulfilled. If such a person were to apply to have an ID card, although they are not entitled in the rules to have one, the provision would enable the Secretary of State to grant them one in those circumstances. The person will not be able to insist that the Secretary of State does so, but the Secretary of State may choose to do so within his discretion.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That, I think the Minister will agree, will depend upon what the Secretary of State prescribes, and one of the problems with this Bill is that we have no idea what is in the Government's mind. What is intended by way of prescription with regard to Clause 8(5)?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The prescription will be contained within the orders. I seek to make clear that Clause 8 merely enables the Secretary of State to exercise his discretion towards the group of people I have described. I do not think this impinges in any way on the entitlement to have a card under the rules.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I do not want to prolong this, but the subsection starts by saying:
	"In prescribed cases an ID card may be issued".
	Does the Minister have any idea what the prescription will be? This is not a blanket discretion for the Secretary of State to allow anyone he or she likes the look of to be given an ID card. Finally, there is no reference here to voluntarism. As the Bill is drafted, is it not possible that there could be an enforced issue of a card?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I do not think so because the Bill deals first with the entitlement and then with this clause. The prescribed cases will cover the example that I have given. I tried to identify the sort of things that will fall within the exemption. I cannot give your Lordships chapter and verse, but those examples could properly fall within this category. Previous residents returning, and those who work in the UK but do not reside here, are all outside the entitlement to such a card, but they could be prescribed. Provided that they were prescribed, the Secretary of State could then exercise his discretion and give them a card. That is the way it would work.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Once they are prescribed, they then become entitled. That is a problem, isn't it?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: If they are prescribed, one then has discretion to include them. If they were not prescribed, you would not have that discretion. It does not give them entitlement, but it enables the Secretary of State to exercise his or her discretion in their favour.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful for that exchange. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 146 to 148 not moved.]
	[Amendment No. 149 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	[Amendment No. 150 not moved.]

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 150A:
	Page 8, line 16, at end insert "or
	( ) the registrable facts under subsection (4)(b),"

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: With the leave of the Committee, I will also speak to Amendments Nos. 161A, 207A and 267A. In our debates on Clause 4, the Government said in passing that they were considering the views of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on specific regulations on statutory instruments. I have tabled these amendments in order to ask the Government if they do intend to accept the recommendations made by that committee that certain of the orders which are currently subject to annulment should be subject to the affirmative procedure.
	I shall seek to summarise the reasons given by the Select Committee in respect of each statutory instrument and then invite the Minister to give the Government's overall response. If that response is positive, I hope we would then be able to reduce considerably the time we need to take over these matters on Report. I hope that, apart from the moving of the amendments at that time, there may not need to be any speeches, as I am aware that we already have a huge number of amendments thundering up, ready to be tabled for Report stage.
	Clause 8 is covered by my first amendment in this group. The Explanatory Notes state:
	"The exact specification and design of ID cards has yet to be determined but when it is these will be set out in regulations".
	Therefore, it is not possible to find out from the Bill what an ID card itself will provide by way of information. The Select Committee report states:
	"Although a surprising level of detail is here proposed to be left to regulations, with one exception we accept the provision in this clause. Clause 8(4) requires an ID card should be issued to certain individuals, except in cases prescribed by regulations, subject to the negative procedure. Those to whom an ID card must be issued are individuals who are entitled to be registered (or subject to compulsory registration) and about whom 'the prescribed registerable facts' are recorded in the register. So whether there is a duty to issue a card will depend upon which registerable facts are prescribed. This seems to us to be of a similar level of importance to prescribing the information recorded on the card. We therefore recommend that the power should be subject to affirmative rather than negative procedure".
	We agree with the committee.
	Clause 10 is covered by my Amendment No. 161A, which refers to the functions of designated documents authorities. Whereas Clause 8 prescribes requirements that can apply to all ID cards, whether issued by the Secretary of State or by an authority issuing designated documents for the purposes of Clause 4—I am in danger of going into the murk and I shall need some lucidity from the Minister as a result, following the pleas from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury—Clause 10(2) is only about ID cards issued by a designated documents authority. It provides that an authority which issues a designated document to an individual who does not hold an ID card must issue an ID card satisfying the prescribed requirements. We return to the murk of what is and is not prescribed. As the committee states:
	"Unless this is intended to be a reference to requirements prescribed by regulations under Clause 8(3), this appears to be an additional power to prescribe requirements. Regulations under Clause 10 are subject to negative procedure only. We recommend that, so far as the power under Clause 10 extends to prescribing matters which, were they prescribed using the powers in Clause 8(3), would be in regulations subject to affirmative procedure, the regulations under Clause 10(2) should also be subject to affirmative procedure".
	It is easier to understand the recommendations when I read them on the page rather than reading them out.
	Clause 19 is covered by my Amendment No. 207A. The committee recommends at paragraph 43 of its fifth report that,
	"the powers in Clause 19(3), (4) and (5) be made subject to the affirmative procedure due to the significance of allowing information on the register to be given and the legitimate concerns of all those affected".
	That general statement covers the recommendations satisfactorily without me having to go into the details of those three subsections. All noble Lords are perfectly able to read them in the Bill.
	Amendment No. 267A, the last in this group, relates to Clause 37 on fees. This enables the Secretary of State by regulations to impose fees in respect of a range of matters set out in subsection (1). The regulations are subject to affirmative procedure for the first regulations, but to the negative procedure thereafter. As the committee states:
	"In view of the fact that ID cards will for many be de facto compulsory from the start",
	with which I wholly agree,
	"(and of course may eventually be compulsory for all), the likely cost of a card and running the system",
	has dominated much of the public debate. The report continues:
	"For example, it is likely that a change of address will be one of the items which regulations under Clause 12(1) will require to be the subject of notification, and a charge may be made by regulations under Clause 37(1)(b)".
	So the committee does not consider it by any means certain that only the first exercise of the power would raise significant issues. I agree with the committee wholeheartedly and therefore with its conclusion,
	"that all regulations made under Clause 37 should be subject to the affirmative procedure unless they are made only to take account of changes in the value of money".
	My overall question is: do the Government intend to accept the committee's recommendations on all four of those clauses and, if so, when might we have sight of the Government's own amendments, which I am sure will be more carefully drafted than mine? I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am sympathetic to the amendments just spoken to by the noble Baroness and strongly support the last in the group—the requirement for an affirmative resolution.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: We are very grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling these amendments, which, as she made clear, take up some of the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on the Identity Cards Bill. The Government are always grateful to that committee, which, as usual, has carried out very careful scrutiny of the Bill. We intend to write to the committee chair in due course to set out the Government's response to the recommendations in the committee's report.
	Therefore, we accept the principle of the noble Baroness's amendments in so far as there should be scrutiny under the affirmative resolution procedure for the power in Clause 8(4)(b) to prescribe the registrable facts on which a requirement to issue an ID card rests, for the power in Clause 10(2) to prescribe requirements for an ID card issued by a designated documents authority, for the powers in subsections (3), (4) and (5) of Clause 19 on the provision of information from the register without consent, and for the fee regulations under Clause 37.
	However, we do not accept two aspects of the noble Baroness's amendments. In respect of Clause 37, we believe that we must follow the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and provide that, where a fee increase is as a result of inflation, such routine changes should be made by regulations that remain subject to the negative resolution procedure. I am sure that the noble Baroness will want to accept that.
	Also, in respect of Clause 10, we take the view that the regulation-making power in subsection (2) should—again, as recommended by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. However, the noble Baroness's amendment, as drafted, would bite on the whole of Clause 10—that is, it would affect the delegated powers in subsections (3) and (4) as well as the one in subsection (2). To that extent, we cannot accept the amendment.
	I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, will understand that, having accepted the principle behind her amendments, we would now like to check the precise drafting with the parliamentary draftsman. Having done that, it would be our intention to bring back on Report what I expect to be very similar government amendments. We should be happy to share the drafts with the noble Baroness so that they accord with her wishes. Therefore, I hope that, having heard that, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Did the Minister say that, although he is not absolutely certain about my noble friend's amendments, the Government are accepting all four recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am sure that the noble Baroness followed what I said. We accept the principle. We are endeavouring to go exactly with the committee's recommendations, and that is the thread of consistency which I am sure the noble Baroness will have followed in my response. We want to check the wording and get it absolutely right. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, herself said that there may be some imperfection in her amendments. I did not want to put it that way but that is how it is.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: The committee's recommendations simply say that in four cases the negative resolution procedure should become the affirmative resolution procedure. Is that what the Government are going to implement?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: That is exactly what we are going to do, yes.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful for the clarity of the Government's answer. I certainly look forward to seeing those amendments. I am a trifle surprised that the Government have not been able to write to the chair of the Select Committee as yet. However, I do not know what the normal timetable is, so it may be that it falls into the usual procedure. I look forward to seeing the amendments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 151:
	Page 8, line 18, at end insert—
	"( ) The Secretary of State must open the contract for the processing and issuing of identity cards to competitive tendering."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The purpose of the amendment is to ask the Government to explain why the contract for the processing and issuing of identity cards should not be opened up to competitive tendering. Is it their firm intention that the contract will be awarded to the Passport Service or are they going to take a more businesslike approach with taxpayers' money and ensure that there is clarity and rigour in the bidding process?
	The issue was raised by the Minister's noble friend at Question Time on 7 November. The noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, asked:
	"is my noble friend aware that the advertising that took place last week recruiting people to the Passport Office had a clear link to proof of identity? The number of jobs and the number of places for issuing such passports are the same as those envisaged in the Bill. Is it already a fait accompli in that the United Kingdom Passport Service has the job before Parliament has agreed to the card. Secondly, do we not already have a very efficient service within the Post Office that could issue these identity cards, which would bring in much-needed revenue to the Post Office and save a lot of money on new premises?"
	As ever, he was punctilious in declaring his interest as a former postman. I picked up on this and I was happy to sign up to this amendment because I noted that the Minister, while giving an answer, did not quite address all the limbs of the question. She answered by saying:
	"I join him in extolling the virtues of the Post Office"—
	charming, as ever, preceding an answer, but she said,
	"I have to say to him that it is proposed that biometric passports will come in the next year. The Passport Office is charged with delivering that part of the agenda, and, therefore, it is correct to say that it will be dealing with the biometric introduction of passports from now on".—[Official Report, 7/11/05; col. 391.]
	However, she did not answer the real question. Is it already a fait accompli that the Passport Service has the contract for processing and issuing identity cards? I have tabled this amendment to give the Minister an opportunity to answer that fully today or to say whether there is to be open competitive tendering. I beg to move.

Lord Clarke of Hampstead: Originally my name was to this amendment but I had to leave London on the day that I thought it would be debated; I did not think that we would debate it on the fifth day in Committee. I put my name to the amendment because I could see no difficulty for the Government in accepting it. A long-established principle in both national government contracts and, very often, with some problems, in local government contracts, is that there should be competitive tendering. I have some difficulty reconciling my noble friend's answer, to which reference was made a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The reply gave me the impression that it was all done and dusted, yet the advert in the paper which led to my original question talked about quite an extensive increase in staff for the United Kingdom Passport Service.
	I asked at the time—as has been referred to already—whether it would be open to other organisations, such as the Post Office. I declared an interest, as I do on these occasions, as a former postman. My question was whether the Post Office or other organisations could be included in the bidding process. As I understand it, as a result of the new legislation, a new executive agency will be formed to cover the functions currently carried out by the United Kingdom Passport Service. It is clear that a key requirement for the new agency will be a nationwide high-street presence to provide an interface with citizens. Whichever company succeeds in winning the existing UKPS contract will be extremely well placed to provide a wide range of related ID card services. This will only further undermine Post Office Limited's traditional role as the primary national provider of government services and will, in turn, place additional pressure on the financial performance of the company.
	I hope that the amendment, if it is carried, will give the Post Office a fair and reasonable chance—I am not asking for special treatment—to bid for the work entailed in this legislation. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will confirm that the amendment is acceptable to the Government.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I hope I can offer some reassurance on the nature of the planned procurement process for the identity card scheme and about the involvement of the private sector in general.
	While strategic functions and critical decision-making for the identity card scheme will necessarily remain under the control of the public sector, it is planned that where the operations of the identity card scheme can best be delivered by the private sector the Home Office will seek to procure these services from the market. Amendment No. 151 would require the Secretary of State to make a commitment on the face of the Bill to open procurement contracts for the processing and issuing of identity cards to competitive tendering. It is unnecessary to put that in the Bill as such procurement requirements are already stipulated by existing European Union legislation which sets out the procedures to be followed at each stage of the procurement process leading to the eventual award of contracts. Those procedures are based on the principles of transparency, non-discrimination and fair competition.
	In accordance with the Office of Government Commerce's best practice, the Home Office is running a number of market sounding exercises to consult the market on our proposed procurement approach. However, the procurement process itself has yet to start, and, as I am sure noble Lords will understand, it cannot be started unless and until the Bill receives Royal Assent.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, made reference to the question asked last week, or perhaps it was the week before, by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, about the United Kingdom Passport Service's advertisements for new staff. Those advertisements for staff are not related to identity cards. I would like to make that quite clear. They cannot be related because Parliament has not yet given its authority. They relate to existing plans and proposals for the UK Passport Service to interview first-time applicants for passports which, as we have made clear in a number of our discussions, are planned to begin next year.
	As part of the planned procurement package, elements of the application and enrolment process will be conducted by the private sector. The Post Office, along with others, will be open to compete for these contracts on the basis of fulfilling the established requirements of the identity card programme—in a manner, of course, that would represent value for taxpayers' money. That is, quite rightly, how we have got to approach this.
	I am therefore happy to confirm that the Post Office will not be discriminated against in any way, shape or form. Those contracts will be open to fair competition and the Post Office, along with others, will have the opportunity, in open competition, to win those contracts on the basis of completing the requirements of the programme. I hope that that offers the reassurance that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, and the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, seek.

Lord Hylton: Competitive tendering may well be desirable in this matter. It raises the question, however, of the confidentiality of very sensitive personal information. Does the Post Office, for example, have any experience at all in handling such personal information? If sensitive personal data are to become known to outside private-sector commercial organisations, what guarantee is there that it will not be further divulged? I look forward to whatever the Government can tell us.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord makes a perfectly respectable point. I agree that it will be crucial to the effectiveness of the scheme that ID cardholders have confidence in its integrity. For that reason, some of the key functions and roles which are critical to the integrity of the scheme will have to be maintained within the public sector. I cannot speak for the Post Office, as it is not my job to do so, but I can confirm that it will be the beneficiary of fair competition for those parts of the programme that are open in terms of procurement.
	One could recall the days in which the Post Office issued passports. It certainly issued many other permissions and licences. No doubt, in making its bid, it will explain its track record in handling sensitive details and processing applications. It does have experience in those fields, as do other organisations. We are entirely at one with the noble Lord's concern to ensure that confidential data are handled sensitively. We are determined to ensure that the integrity of the scheme will be properly maintained and, where appropriate, contained within the public sector.

Lord Clarke of Hampstead: Can the Minister confirm to the Committee that the identification-related services already handled by the Post Office—the existing passport check and send service—deal with virtually the same sort of information that will be required under the new system?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am not an expert in that field. I am going to take the noble Lord on trust and agree with him that it is probably quite similar.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: The Minister said that this service would be put out to private tender. However, the Post Office is still a public authority. I take it that there is no intention to privatise the Post Office and that, as a public authority, it will be able to tender.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The term that we use is "competitive tender" and we are seeking best value. Privatising the Post Office is not part of this legislation and that is not what we are about. The Post Office is there and can compete on terms with others which may wish to provide this service.

Lord Crickhowell: I have listened very carefully to what the Minister has said. I have nothing so difficult to ask as a question about privatisation. He anticipated the question that I was going to ask, which was about the European requirements. It seemed very clear to me that the European requirements would have to be complied with. The Minister has already indicated that the United Kingdom Passport Service is going ahead with the new arrangements to meet international air traffic requirements and so on. In the letter that the noble Baroness helpfully circulated last weekend, the United Kingdom Passport Service's current estimates for that first phase were set out, and we have the Government's estimates of what the new and total package will be.
	As I understood what the noble Lord said, while the United Kingdom Passport Service has to go ahead with its phase, there has to be a wholly separate tender arrangement for identity cards. If the whole arrangement is to be based, as the Government say it will be, on the operations of the United Kingdom Passport Service, there may be difficulties in having that total separation. May we not be so far down the process that the United Kingdom Passport Service is undertaking that it may be quite difficult to have a wholly separate tender for the ID cards? It may be that there is a simple answer to that, but it is the question that struck me as I listened to the Minister's response.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to the Minister for a reply of clarity which it was perhaps not possible to give on 7 November. I say that in my most charitable way. I assume from what the Minister said today that he just gave a resounding "Yes" to the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Hampstead. In that spirit, I am delighted to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 8 agreed to.
	Clause 9 [ID cards for those compulsorily registered]:
	[Amendments Nos. 152 to 160 not moved.]
	Clause 9 agreed to.
	[Amendment No. 161 not moved.]
	Clause 10 [Functions of persons issuing designated documents]:
	[Amendment No. 161A not moved.]
	Clause 10 agreed to.
	Clause 11 [Power to require information for validating Register]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 162:
	Page 9, line 36, leave out paragraph (c).

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I see the finishing post in sight and it would be good if we could get there tonight. In this group I have Amendments Nos. 162, 163 and 164. I will therefore not move Amendments Nos. 163 and 164 and speak only briefly to Amendment No. 162. This amendment relates to Clause 11, which is entitled,
	"Power to require information for validating Register".
	It gives the Secretary of State the right to call upon, broadly, government departments to validate or verify something recorded in the register about an individual; or something that he has been provided with which is capable of being recorded; or—and this is my amendment; and again it is a probing one designed to elucidate quite what Clause 11(1)(c) means—
	"something otherwise available to the Secretary of State for being recorded about an individual in the Register".
	Presumably, that would cover the London telephone directory if he was looking for addresses. But, truly, this is a probing amendment and I would be delighted to know whether the paragraph really is necessary and what it is all about. I beg to move.

Baroness Seccombe: Clause 11 deals with the provisions that the Government feel are necessary to permit data to be shared with the Secretary of State and designated documents authorities for the purposes of verifying information to be placed on the national identity register, where no such powers already exist. The amendments in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Phillips of Sudbury, highlight the fact that a person can provide information about themselves only if they indeed possess it and it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise. Amendment No. 162 goes further and questions the legitimacy of the Secretary of State being able to use "something otherwise available" to him,
	"for being recorded about an individual in the Register".
	Will the Minister please outline to the Committee the sort of information and situation Her Majesty's Government envisage will call for this provision in subsection (1)?
	I have two further questions. First, does the Minister have current examples in mind? Secondly, what verification efforts will the Government make to ensure that the information which the Secretary of State has available from whatever sources is correct and will not open up problems of error which have already been debated, such as whether the individual will be compensated if the information, for whatever reason, turns out to be incorrect?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I am more than happy to help. Clause 11, as the noble Lord indicated, empowers the Secretary of State and designated documents authorities to impose requirements on people to provide information for verifying the register. But the power applies where it appears to the Secretary of State or a designated documents authority that the person concerned may have information in his possession which could be used for verification. The rationale behind this clause is the rigorous biographical footprint check that will be undertaken when a person applies to be entered onto the register. That is the most important moment when we have to be absolutely sure that the person being entered is the person that they say they are. We therefore need to ensure as far as possible that no false or inaccurate details are entered into the register. A requirement under the clause can be imposed only on a body named in an affirmative order approved by Parliament.
	Amendment No. 162 would remove paragraph (c) from Clause 11 (1) and would thus not allow information to be validated unless it were either already on the register under subsection (1)(a) or had been provided for the purpose of being recorded in the register, such as an individual's own application under subsection (1)(b). I shall try to give the noble Baroness some examples to assist her so that she better understands what we are trying to do.
	It is quite possible that there will be information that needs to be validated that is not on the register and has not been provided for the purpose of registration; for example, information already known about a person from existing Home Office immigration records, or if in checking someone's address with, say, the DVLA, a different address to the one on the application was given. The second address would not have been provided for the purpose of being recorded on the register and could be out of date. In making any further checks with, say, the Department for Work and Pensions, it would be right to check both addresses—the original provided by the applicant and the second provided by the DVLA. I am not suggesting that every inconsistency will mean that the applicant is deliberately submitting false information, but there needs to be sufficient powers to make such checks not just on the information that the applicant has provided with their application.
	Amendment No. 163 would restrict the Secretary of State to requiring information from a person only if that person had the information. Amendment No. 164 has the same effect but in respect of designated document authorities. In our view these amendments are unnecessary. The Secretary of State has power to require validation information if it appears to him that a person or body designated in an order under the clause may have it, but the duty to provide it under Clause 11(3)(b) applies only if the person has the information in his possession. So at least in that respect the Bill already has the effect that I believe that the noble Baroness wants and that the noble Lord has expressed a desire to have.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful for that explanation. I am not moving Amendments Nos. 163 and 164 because of the point made by the noble Baroness. I think she said that there could be a discrepancy between the address provided by someone and an address at the DVLA and that that would be ascertained through Clause 11(1)(a) or (b). There would be the right to say to the DVLA, "Please let us have the address". I do not quite see where Clause 11(1) (c) comes into the example that she gave. If the request under Clause 11(1)(a) or (b) produced a different address from the one that is recorded or in the application form, why is Clause 11(1)(c) necessary? Presumably, the Secretary of State could go to any other government body specified—virtually any government department, and so on—and get further information about the address that it has about the individual. I do not see how the paragraph comes into it.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The noble Lord may remember the example I gave of information that may already be in the possession of the Secretary of State in, for example, the immigration records. That would not have been provided for the purpose of the register, but, under Clause 11(1)(c), it would be something which was,
	"otherwise available to the Secretary of State for being recorded about an individual in the Register".
	It would enable the Home Office to look at its records and make sure that we have the right correlation between those two. That is why subsection (1)(c) is important.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I will think further about it. I am still not convinced, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 163 and 164 not moved.]

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 165:
	Page 10, line 11, leave out "include" and insert "are"

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: In moving Amendment No. 165, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 166. I am grateful to note that they are supported by the noble Lords, Lord Phillips and Lord Dholakia. Grouped with them are Amendments Nos. 268A and 268B, which are tabled in the names of those noble Lords. My amendments would restrict the Secretary of State's power to require organisations to provide information to him in order to verify the information held on the national identity register. The clause deals with the provisions that the Government believe to be necessary to allow data to be shared with the Secretary of State and designated documents authorities in order that information on the register may be verified.
	In the past, I have referred to the duty under subsection (1) for a person to provide information to the Secretary of State so that an entry on the national identity register can be verified. It was part of a previous debate on another group and it is part of Clause 11(1). Clause 11(4) makes it clear that the requirement to provide information can be imposed on anyone specified in an order—for example, local government or the private sector. My amendments focus on the provisions of subsection (5) that clarify subsection (4). The Explanatory Notes tell us that the organisations or people who could fall foul of this duty could also include central government organisations and the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland and Wales. The amendments would be to exclude anyone else from falling foul of that duty.
	How do the Government intend to extend the list of those bodies that will be required to provide information to the Government? I was not reassured by the Minister's answer in another place on 14 July. He said:
	"The checks mentioned in the clause will be modest and generally limited to other Government databases, for example those of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee D, 14/7/05; col. 280.]
	He went on specifically to state that the Government might wish to use the information held on credit reference agencies' databases and private databases. Can the Minister assure the Committee that information held on those databases is 100 per cent correct 100 per cent of the time? If it is not, why should that information be used to verify information on the national identity register?
	The Minister went on to say that,
	"Some private sector organisations hold pretty wide databases with up-to-date biographic information".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee D, 14/7/05; col. 281.]
	So are the Government planning to buy into databases held by Tesco? I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I have Amendments Nos. 268A and 268B in this group, to which I shall speak briefly. They concern Clause 39, which is, again, a verification clause. It is reasonable of us to be jealous of the powers given to the Secretary of State under the Bill generally. I note that Clause 39(3)(e), which would be replaced by my Amendment No. 268A, goes very wide. My substituted wording, which is taken verbatim from an earlier clause, would enable more predicable and reasonable bodies to be asked or to be the subject of a requirement under Clause 39. If Amendment No. 268A is accepted, Amendment No. 268B is necessary because subsection (4) will fall. Again, this is in the nature of a probing amendment. I look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness has to say.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I understand the premise on which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has moved her amendment. However, I should say to her that our plans are such that the requirement to provide information for the verification of details supplied will generally be limited to other government databases such as those cited by the noble Baroness—the DVLA or the Department for Work and Pensions—which I am sure she would not disagree with. Nothing in her remarks caused me to think so. However, we think it important that this power should remain in the Bill if it becomes apparent over time that people are slipping through the net for verification purposes.
	The noble Baroness questioned the issue of private databases and whether they are 100 per cent correct. However, the UK Passport Service already checks credit reference agency data as part of its identity verification process. Clause 11 would allow the Secretary of State to make orders requiring private organisations to verify information held on their databases in appropriate circumstances. It is not unreasonable to imagine a set of circumstances in which a check with a credit reference agency could prove useful in establishing an individual's biographical footprint. It may be that in the future further decisions would be made with regard to the databases of other private organisations. It is worth noting that by removing subsection (5)(e), the Secretary of State would be prevented from specifying, for example, the Scottish Executive as a body required to provide verification information. I am sure noble Lords agree that that would create an unnecessary anomaly.
	I take this opportunity to emphasise the point that information which may be verified is limited to such information that is, could be or was intended to be recorded on the register. In practice, the power will be used in relation to details such as name, address and date of birth. This power does not enable the Secretary of State to record any additional information on the register. It is purely to verify information already provided or available. I am delighted to answer the noble Baroness on the point about Tesco, although I do not know why she did not mention Waitrose, Marks & Spencer or Sainsbury's as well. I can say to her that there is no intention so to do.
	Amendments Nos. 268A and 268B would limit the persons who can be specified in an order which requires them to provide information for verifying something in a passport application under Clause 39 to those named in subsection (3)(a) to (d), in effect Ministers of the Crown, government departments, the Northern Ireland Office, the National Assembly for Wales and any other person who carries out functions conferred by or under an enactment that fall to be carried out on behalf of the Crown. I resist these amendments on the same basis and for the same reasons that I resisted Amendments Nos. 165 and 166, to which I have already referred.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: In referring to Clause 11(5), the noble Baroness mentioned the fact that the Scottish Executive is not on the list. I was fascinated, on reading the Bill, to note that this was probably considered to be a measure of propriety. It would be rather a cheek to compel the Scottish Executive to do anything that relates to their own affairs. How will the Secretary of State verify information held by government departments in Scotland; that is, the departments of the Scottish Executive? Does "may" mean that the Government can do that, but they do not have to? In that case, the amendment would be counterproductive so far as concerns Scotland. Alternatively, will that not happen in any case? How will facts about Scots be verified under this subsection?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: At the moment, subsection (5)(e) enables the Secretary of State to specify the Scottish Executive as a body required to provide verification information and would allow that to happen. If we remove, as has been suggested, subsection (5)(e), the Secretary of State would be disabled from requiring the Scottish Executive to provide information for verification. The noble Baroness will see the difficulties that could immediately arise in that regard. We have a UK Passport Service at the moment and when ID cards come in it will be a UK-wide provision. It is appropriate that, pursuant to subsection (5)(e), the Secretary of State should be able to invite the Scottish Executive to provide verification of the information which is to be entered onto the register. This would ensure that the details of those who have the joy of living north of the Border are correctly recorded.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I appreciate that point. I wonder why, when the Bill was being drafted and the Advocate-General was looking at it and trying to make it fit in properly for Scotland, the Scottish Executive were not consulted and are not on the list. I find it slightly strange. Obviously the Scottish Executive have not yet agreed to this and so they come under "any other person". I expect the provision will work all right but it is rather peculiar to see all the others listed but not the Scottish Executive. I certainly do not want the amendment. I accept the noble Baroness's point on that.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My name is on the two amendments spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The form of words in my own amendment is exactly the same as the form of words in Clause 11, to which Amendments Nos. 162 and 163 relate. My amendment No. 268A relates to the clause dealing with the verifying of information on the register and refers to,
	"any other person who carries out functions conferred by or under an enactment that fall to be carried out on behalf of the Crown".
	Clause 39, to which my first amendment relates, has the same list in subsection (3) as the list in Clause 11(5)(a) to (d)—
	"a Minister of the Crown . . . a government department . . . a Northern Ireland department . . . the National Assembly for Wales; or"—
	but then, instead of the wording used in Clause 11(5)(e), there is a completely different formulation which is so much wider. It is not confined at all to people acting on behalf of the Crown; it could include Uncle Tom Cobbley.
	I do not see the policy justification for the difference. Both are verification clauses but Clause 39(3)(e) is as wide as the ocean; the Secretary of State could specify anybody or anything. I would be grateful if the Minister could give me the policy justification.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I had hoped I had done that by saying to the Committee that we anticipate that the majority of those who will be providing the verification will fall within the ambit of the individuals and bodies which the noble Lord has just enumerated. Our view is that further and other agencies may need to be consulted in relation to checking essential details, in particular to ensure that the footprint that gets entered on to the register is absolutely right. Clauses 11 and 39 are drafted differently because the Passport Service is already operating and making those checks, but the people who may be specified are the same. Clause 39(3)(e) has the same effect as Clause 11(4) but includes private bodies, and the first does not. I hope that that helps the noble Lord to see the difference.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am still mystified. The Passport Office, which has wider powers under Clause 39, requires and is entitled to a much narrower range of information than the national identity register will carry. It seems a paradox that the national identity register, which will have all the Schedule 1 matters under the Bill, has a narrower power of requiring information than the Passport Office. I do not understand it and would be grateful if the noble Baroness could consider this after the debate. I do not think there is any consistency about the two provisions; I am not happy about the first, and I am very unhappy about the second.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I am sorry if I have not expressed it clearly enough. I think that the two provisions are consistent; I would be happy to write to the noble Lord specifically about this matter, sharing the copies with others. I hope that the noble Lord will then see that what we have done makes good sense.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to the noble Baroness, as ever, but there are some questions that have arisen from this debate which I shall have to think about between now and Report. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Carnegy for pointing out what appears to be an inconsistency in the omission at this stage of the Scottish Executive. I understand entirely the helpful answer given by the Minister.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I wish to make it clear that we have consulted the Scottish Executive. There is nothing between us; they are perfectly content with how we have done this. It works, and I thank the noble Baroness for saying, with such alacrity, that she did not want the amendment. I respectfully agree with her.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful that the Minister has answered the question about consulting the Scottish Executive which had been left unanswered, so we have that on the record. This was a probing amendment; one of the points I made, about buying into a database, has not yet been answered. Tesco was the first one that came to mind, as it is one of the store cards I hold—one of many. On the costs of setting up and maintaining the scheme, we need to know whether the requirement that is to be imposed upon certain bodies by the clause brings with it a payment from the Government to the outside organisation, which may then be required to provide information. I notice that the noble Baroness did not address that. We will have the opportunity to return to the issue of costs next week; I may simply put that down as a Written Question, unless she would like to give a yes or no answer now. I see that she does not wish to give an answer at the moment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 166 not moved.]
	Clause 11 agreed to.
	Clause 12 [Notification of changes affecting accuracy of Register]:
	[Amendments Nos. 167 to 174A not moved.]
	Clause 12 agreed to.
	Clause 13 [Invalidity and surrender of ID cards]:
	[Amendment No. 175 not moved.]

The Earl of Northesk: moved Amendment No. 176:
	Page 11, line 41, at end insert—
	"( ) Where an ID card has been cancelled under subsection (2)(a) to (d) and that cancellation has not been occasioned as a result of any action on the part of the individual to whom it was issued, it shall be the responsibility of the Secretary of State to issue an amended replacement card free of charge."

The Earl of Northesk: As the drafting of the clause stands, the Bill seems to confer liability for an ID card becoming invalid wholly and exclusively upon the individual to whom it has been issued. Yet it is conceivable that in the circumstances defined by the relevant subsections, the individual may not have been responsible for this in any way whatsoever as a result of, say, bureaucratic error or a reader corrupting the data on the card, and so on.
	In such circumstances, it is disproportionate to require the individual to incur the expense of obtaining a replacement card. Indeed, this is another area where the scheme could discriminate against the most disadvantaged in society. To address the problem, the amendment proposes that, when an individual's ID card is cancelled through no fault of his own, he should be issued with a replacement free of charge. Dare I say it, this represents a much more convenient and equitable arrangement. On that basis, I can but hope that it might inspire a sympathetic response from the noble Baroness. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Amendments Nos. 260 and 261, 263 to 267 and 268 are in this group. Amendment No. 260 relates to the fees charging clause, Clause 37, and specifies that there should be no fees charged in relation to changes affecting the accuracy of the register as prescribed by Section 12. Secondly, the fee for issuing an ID card should be capped at £30. The first of those proposals—that there should be no fee in connection with notification of changes—is reasonable enough. This card will be compulsory. To require a fee every time a student, for example, moves house—as they frequently do, often more than once a year—would be unfair and resented. Indeed, the whole notification charge procedure that we have been led to expect will bear heavily on those members of our community least able to bear the expenses. They will bear a disproportionate cost because they are disproportionately on the move—I am not only thinking of students.
	The £30 limit hoists the Government with their own petard. We have been told endlessly that this will not cost more than £30. Fine; let us put that on the face of the Bill. It could be that after the noble Baroness or the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, have moved to greater heights, their successors may say, "Well, that was only a cockshy in the House of Lords. Actually, it is £130—no, £230", when the LSE figures are found to be correct. I seriously propose a cap on this wretched fee. If the Government are going to force it on us, they can jolly well live out their prognostications.
	Amendment No. 261 is a gift to the Government—I am sure that the noble Baroness will be grateful. It gives them the power—not the duty—to exempt from payment of fees in whole or part any person or category of persons. That would, for example, allow them to exempt students from paying fees when they move house.
	The other amendments in the group deal with the entitlement under Clause 37(3) for the Secretary of State when prescribing fees to take into account a rather terrifying list of things. In my amendments, I at least seek to ensure that only direct expenses can be taken into account when fees are set so that the whole overhead of government—the vast Whitehall estate—cannot be used as an excuse for piling on indirect costs for the purposes of reaching prescribed fees under Clause 37(3).

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I shall briefly comment on Amendment No. 261, just for completeness, as we have our name to some of the amendments in this group.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, referred to Amendment No. 261 being a gift to the Government because thereby they might be able to exempt students. That was the category that he gave; the category that we put forward is that of older people, who may be retired on low income, and others on low income. I know that we have had conversations before across the Dispatch Box about the difficulty of identifying categories of people who may be on low income, but I hope that the Minister has been sufficiently prompted by previous debates to be able to respond positively to some of those proposals when he replies to Amendment No. 261 in particular.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The amendments are clear, and we understand them. We believe that the issue of ID cards should be compared to the issue of existing documents such as passports or driving licences, for which a fee is charged, rather than a public service, such as education or National Health Service treatment, which is free at the point of use.
	We entirely accept that some people might find it difficult to pay the full fee for an ID card. However, the Bill provides at Clause 37 a wide range of powers to set fees, including allowing for the payment of fees by instalments. The Government have always made it clear that there would be concessions or discounts for those on low incomes. Not everyone would need to pay the full cost—and we believe that that is fair.
	Clause 41(4)(b) would allow us to waive fees altogether for particular groups, just as we do for passport fees for people born on or before 2 September 1929, which makes Amendment No. 261 unnecessary. However, it would be wrong to tie our hands completely by requiring all cards to be issued free of charge. The fee charged for an ID card would be only a relatively small uplift on the cost of a passport. We have already published in the regulatory impact assessment our forecast unit cost of £93 for issuing a biometric passport and ID card. I should stress that that is a unit cost, not the actual fee that would be charged, and that around 70 per cent of the unit cost would be accounted for anyway by the cost of introducing biometric passports with both facial image and fingerprint biometrics.
	A charge of £30 has been announced for a stand-alone ID card that is valid for 10 years at today's prices. I do not consider it appropriate that £30 is specified in the Bill as a maximum charge, as in Amendment No. 260, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Primary legislation is not the place for specific detail on costs. The Government have made their announcement and, when the first fees are announced, Parliament will have the opportunity to debate them. This may be tempting fate, but I must say that I cannot think of a piece of legislation that sets fees in the way that is proposed in this amendment. Perhaps the noble Lord has an example of that.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: No, but the noble Lord is provoked because he cannot think of legislation of this consequence for which the establishment and integration costs, which run into billions, are not vouchsafed to the House in order for them to adjudge the merits or alternatives. So, if he is going to give me one example of uniqueness, I shall give him another.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: That is a clever point from the noble Lord but, as I explained, Parliament will have the opportunity to debate fees through the process of secondary legislation.
	Amendment No. 260 would also mean that no charges could be levied for modifications to the register under Clause 12. Amendment No. 176 would preclude charges being levied for the reissue or replacement of an ID card if it is cancelled through no fault of the individual. We are assuming that no charge will be levied for maintenance transactions of the register that do not require a new ID card to be issued, such as change of address—so I am afraid that I do not consider the point that the noble Lord made about students relevant. However, it may be necessary to charge for changes that require a new ID card to be issued, as well as for the replacement of lost or stolen ID cards. There will also be a fee charged for the reissue or replacement of expired ID cards. It would not be practical to introduce a fault test to any charges that could be levied under this clause. How would one establish whether an individual was not at fault in losing their card for the third time in six months? I can think of occasions when, certainly, younger people mislay their precious cards—whatever those cards happen to be—fairly frequently. We have to make people think and act responsibly in this matter.
	It is right that the maintenance process should allow for a fee to be charged, in particular in those cases where a new card needs to be issued. We intend that the charging regime decided in the future will be reasonable. The fee regime will be set in regulations made under Clause 37 nearer the introduction of ID cards in 2008 so there will, as I said, be an opportunity for Parliament to consider the actual fees proposed. The Bill has been amended already to make the first fee order subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
	Amendments Nos. 263 to 267 would require the Secretary of State to have directly incurred any expenses which he could prescribe fees to recover. Our intention is that we should have as flexible a fee regime as possible, subject to one important proviso: we cannot run the overall scheme at a profit and use the net revenue to fund other public services. This is not an identity card tax. However, given the range of services offered by the scheme—registration, card issuing, accreditation of organisations using the scheme to check identity and the validation of information recorded in the register, to name but a few—it is reasonable to allow for flexibility in setting charges for individual services subject, of course, to the very important principle that in total we are not raising more in charges than it costs to run the scheme.
	The way that the amendments are worded would also introduce an unwelcome degree of uncertainty into the application of the fee regime. It could suggest that the costs of paying others for relevant work—for example, specialists in information technology—could not be taken into account in setting fees under the Bill. I suggest that is not a sensible way to limit the power.
	Amendment No. 268 would make all fee-related orders subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. This goes further than the recommendation from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report, which was that orders merely to keep pace with inflation should remain subject to negative procedures. We had a brief discussion on that earlier. We have considered the report and are inclined to agree that the power to set fees should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, apart from the regular uprating of fees to take account of inflation. In a spirit of compromise I assure Members of the Committee that if they withdraw this amendment we will return on Report with a suitable replacement.
	I think that that answers most of the points raised by the three noble Lords who contributed to the debate. I have a little more information on students. As I have already told the Committee, the intention is that students will have a choice whether to keep temporary term-time addresses on the register or register their home address. It is not intended to keep addresses on the card or to charge a fee for a change of address. I want to make that clear although I believe that I did so earlier.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Lord for dealing with those amendments, particularly for the concession on the affirmative order for the setting of the original fee. I perfectly accept that the top-ups should not need it.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I wonder whether I might assist the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Does he mean to welcome the fact that the only changes that will be made by negative procedure will be those that reflect changes in the value of money? I do not think the Government are trying to get out of the recommendation that the affirmative procedure should apply to changes in the level of fees where those do not simply reflect changes in the value of money. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is trying to give away too much.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I never try to give away too much but I am a generous fellow, and it was my amendment. I did not want to do any more than the noble Baroness said, and I will not repeat it because it would be boring. What the noble Lord said about wanting a flexible regime is all very well but there is anxiety about what people will have to pay. The anxiety is partly because there is so little hard information about costs, but there is also genuine concern about just how the Government will behave in terms of making concessions to different groups. Given that he does not like my attempts at putting a bit more framework around the charging provisions, would there be some purpose in meeting to see whether anything can be done, beyond the affirmative resolution for the basic setting of fees, to provide a little solace and a little framework?
	One of the points the Minister raised, which is germane to all this, is whether the Government intend to offset the revenue that they generate through selling the services of the register to the private sector. Do they intend to offset revenues against the expenses by reference to which they will set charges? For example, if—to take the extreme case—the annual running cost of the register was recouped by sales of services to the private sector, would that mean the Government would not be charging at all, for notifications of changes of address, for example? Is that what the noble Lord was hinting at?
	These are difficult issues, but I would be most grateful if we could try to come back on Report with something a bit more specific, which may address this issue and others.

Lord Hylton: If the Ministers intend to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, on the Government's intentions as regards selling information from the register to private bodies of all kinds, will the Government specify what kinds of information they will be selling? This is a most important matter, touching on private information and the data of individuals.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: The more I have sat here and listened to the debate on these amendments, the more concerned I have become. The comparison was made with passports. The noble Lord said that you pay for a passport, after all, so why not for an identity card. As I understand it, in the first place the Minister can require people to be signed on to the national identity register and to have an ID card. That is compulsion, so far as I am concerned, but those people will presumably still have to pay for that card.
	There has been no great outcry for this Bill. People have not come forward and said desperately, "We must have an identity card". Indeed, until Ministers raised it, the discussion about it was pretty low-key. I am getting very concerned that people who eventually will be required compulsorily to have an identity card should not have to pay for it, because they are not asking for it. It will not be at their request. It is being imposed on them by Parliament, and it seems to me that if something is being imposed upon the people of this country, they should not be expected to pay individually for it.
	I am concerned that the Government have not understood what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, have been trying to get at: that there are discrepancies in parts of the Bill, and in this part of the Bill relating to charges, that ought to be remedied. However, that gives me the opportunity to reiterate my belief that when something will eventually be imposed on people, they should not be made to pay for it.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I normally agree warmly with anything the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, says, but I wonder if he is right on this. If the cards were given free, gratis and for nothing to everyone, I believe that—it is just what the Government might want—the critical faculties of the nation would be effectively anaesthetised. On this occasion, I disagree with the noble Lord. It would be very much better if people did pay, because then their critical faculties would be applied to the scheme, as it deserves.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: It depends on how you look at it. I never wanted identity cards in the first place. If people are to have them and they are to be imposed upon them, I do not see why they should be put under the dual disadvantage of having to pay for them. It is not as if they wanted ID cards; and a requirement to look after them will be placed on people by the Government and by Parliament, not at people's request, but because the Government think for spurious reasons that we should have a compulsory identity cards scheme in due course. That is what worries me. We are being asked to pay far too much for far too many things that the people do not want but that the Government are imposing on them.
	I hope that the noble Lord would agree with that. I am sure that the Conservative Party would agree that too many rules, regulations and impositions are being placed on people. To make them pay for it as well adds insult to injury.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am always delighted when there is a bit of friction between the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, because it colours proceedings. Whether it illuminates this debate, I am less certain, although I was inclined to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, in his analysis.
	I want to clarify one or two issues to put this matter finally to bed. I want to make sure that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, understands that simple changes of address in the way that he described will not mean that there has to be a re-charging of the ID card-holder—that he will have to pay a new fee simply for notifying the register of a change of address. I also want to answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, because I know that he was not present at some of our earlier discussions when such questions were raised.
	There will be no open access to information on the register. Private companies will not be able to access or buy national identity register entries. However, with the consent of the ID card-holder, banks or other approved businesses will be able to verify identity by checking an ID card against the national identity register. This will mainly involve confirming that the card is valid, has not been reported lost or stolen, and that the information shown on the card is correct. It could also allow identity information not shown on the face of the card, such as address, to be provided, but, again, only—I repeat, "only"—with the consent of the card-holder.
	The card-holder's biometric may also, with his consent, be confirmed against the biometric held on the national identity register. However, there is an important caveat: Clause 14 specifically prevents fingerprints or other biometric information being provided from the register to a private sector organisation, even with the consent of the individual. The clause also prevents administrative information that is not related to confirming identity, such as an ID card-holder's record history, being provided to a private sector organisation again, even with the card-holder's consent.
	Clause 27 provides that transaction fees may be charged to businesses who verify identity by checking ID cards against a register, with the card-holder's consent. Information may not be provided without the card-holder's consent to any private sector organisation. So this is a tightly-constrained scheme. There will be no wholesale selling of information in the way that I think the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, envisaged.
	As to the broader questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, about there being some form of cross-subsidy within the way that the scheme operates through charging, I made it clear that the scheme must pay for itself, but it cannot profit over and above that. I will give some further thought to the points that he made in that discussion, because I believe that we should do so and that he has raised an interesting issue. But I am not sure that anything further can be gained from it. I will reflect on his comments, but I think that they are based on a misapprehension in part.
	Having heard that further elucidation, the noble Earl may feel slightly better informed and able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I—

The Earl of Northesk: Does the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, want to ask further questions? It is my amendment.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I want quickly to ask the Minister something. When he talks about students moving addresses and stuff, he is talking about a concession on the part of the Government. As I apprehend it, using the powers of the Bill they could require a fee every time that there was such a change.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I thought that I had made it clear several times, or at least twice, that that is not our intended approach.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That makes it clear—the Government could require a fee, but they do not intend to. That is what the Minister is saying. On the wording of the Bill, the Government would be entitled to charge a fee every time that a student notified a change in address, but they are saying, "Although we could, we do not intend to".

Lord Bassam of Brighton: That is right. We have no intention of charging for a change of address in the way in which the noble Lord is saying.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: That is the point. It is one thing for the Government to say that they do not intend to charge; that is fine for this Government and this Minister, and I am very happy to hear it. However, I am concerned about what may happen at some future time. My Amendment No. 261 gives the Government the power to have different categories of fees, and I am not sure that that power exists at the moment. If it does, will he kindly tell me where it resides, because it would make my amendment redundant?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: Yes, we have a discretion for the setting of fees. That power is there. I cannot cite the noble Lord the precise provision; I am hoping for a note any second now that will enable me to do exactly that. It is Clause 41(4)(b), which I referred to earlier. I thought that I had made the point very clearly.

The Earl of Northesk: I thank all Members of the Committee who have contributed to the debate. I also thank the Minister for his responses. I make the general point that, undoubtedly, we will have to return to fees on Report. Clearly a number of concerns and anxieties remain, not least in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. As to the narrower point raised by my amendment, I take the Minister's point that it could be difficult to assess when a requirement to cancel an individual's card has not been occasioned by his own fault. Indeed, I had not intended the amendment to apply with respect to lost cards. Nevertheless, in the circumstances that I cited—for example, a card reader chewing up a card or corrupting the data on it—I feel it a little mean-spirited for the Government not to be a bit more generous. I shall carefully reflect on the debate but, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 177 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	Clause 13 agreed to.
	Clause 14 [Provision of information for verification or otherwise with consent]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 178:
	Page 12, line 36, after "the" insert "express"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: This is a group of two amendments in my name, Amendments Nos. 178 and 180. They relate to Clause 14, which allows the Secretary of State to provide information on the register to commercial sources with the consent of the individual concerned. It is an important provision, and we on these Benches have no problem with the notion of a certain income being generated if it is genuinely with the consent of the card-holder.
	Amendments Nos. 178 and 180 make it clear that that consent must be express. It may be said that that is how the person in charge of the register will work, but I should like it to be as plain as a pikestaff that the only consent that will enable the Secretary of State to provide information is express consent. That is what these amendments relate to. I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My name appears on the Marshalled List in support of Amendment No. 178. I had originally tabled my own amendments, which I subsequently withdrew simply because, although they tried to achieve the same objective, I thought that they were inferior to that of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I had required the consent to be written but I appreciate that his broader use of the word "express" covers consent in all its forms where one is positive that the consent has been given. I agree with him that one needs to have proof that consent has been given to ensure proper administration of the system.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I understand the concern expressed by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness but, looking at the drafting, I do not think that that concern is justified. I shall explain why I think that the noble Lord can remain calm and content about this.
	As the noble Lord and the noble Baroness rightly say, Clause 14 is about providing a means for a person to establish his own identity by authorising an organisation to obtain verification from the register that he is who he says he is. I make it clear that the other safeguards already in the Bill ensure that the checks made under Clause 14 really are voluntary. That is the issue that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness are worried about—they want to know whether they are real.
	Subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 14 already allow only a limited part of the information held in Schedule 1 to be provided. Fingerprints, biometric information and the answers to security questions can be confirmed but not provided. Registration and card history, validation information and audit trail information cannot be provided in response to a check under Clause 14, even if the individual consents. Further restrictions can be imposed under subsection (4)(b) by regulations, should that prove necessary. Noble Lords will see that that paragraph states:
	"by regulations impose restrictions in addition to those contained in this section on the information that may be provided to a person under this section".
	So we can strengthen this safeguard if we find that we need to.
	Subsection (6) makes provision for an accreditation system for user organisations. I can confirm that only organisations which have been accredited as being suitable and as having adequate systems for security will be approved.
	Amendment No. 180 defines consent as being explicit. It is worth recalling that when the Data Protection Directive was implemented through the Data Protection Act 1998, Parliament chose not to define "consent". Consideration was given to whether a definition was necessary but it was considered to be unnecessary because a substantial amount of case law, with which I know the noble Lord is familiar, has addressed the concept of consent from many different angles. I know that the noble Baroness will also have dealt with consent in her capacity as a magistrate. Our common law system has covered the ground extremely thoroughly. Creating a short statutory definition would add nothing and might even cause confusion.
	It is self-explanatory and consistent with the common law that consent for a check to be made on the register must be freely given by a person who understands that his card or, as the case may be, his biometrics are being used to verify his identity. Amendment No. 178 requires that an application for the provision of information is made with the express authority of the individual. For similar reasons, as I said in relation to consent, we believe that it will be taken as read that "authority" means "a freely given and informed authority". Perhaps we should also consider that under Clause 14(5)(a) there is a power to make provision by way of regulations about how an authority for the purposes of Clause 14(1)(a) is to be given. That is important and should give us the required framework.
	I absolutely agree with the noble Lord and the noble Baroness that there has to be consent, it has to be freely given for it to be valid in accordance with our usual understanding, and we think that the provisions that we have made are adequate. It is too early to have a draft SI on "authority" but we hope that this explanation has taken the matter a long way. Noble Lords will know that my honourable friend Tony McNulty made a promise in Committee in the other place to provide further information on what regulations relating to authority will look like. It is too early to have a draft SI on authority, but we hope that the briefing that we have provided will help to reassure people about our thinking in that regard. I hope that what I have just said has calmed the noble Lord's troubled spirit, satisfied him that we are on the same page and will enable him to withdraw his amendment and I hope that the noble Baroness will be similarly content.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I hate to hold up proceedings but the Minister talked about the very important issue of the meaning of consent and gave her view on what the word means in common law. Have the Government checked that this is all right in Scots law as well? It is such a crucial point and one on which Scots law could differ. I am not a lawyer, so I have no idea whether that is a valid question. If the Minister has not checked, perhaps she could drop me a note on that.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I am very happy to check, but I can reassure your Lordships and the noble Baroness that the law in Scotland has been around for as long as the law in England and Wales. Consent is an issue with which the Scots have grappled with equal vigour to the way in which we have grappled with it here. I shall be delighted to check that for the noble Baroness. As she knows, we always check, in anticipation that she will ask, "What about Scotland?"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thank the Minister for calming my troubled breast—an almost anaesthetic calming of my troubled breast, so full was the reply. However, she will not take it amiss if I say, lawyer to lawyer, that consoling the great British public by reference to the innumerable cases on common law is not what we seek to achieve in this place. I thought that the little word "express" would make it clear to anyone who read it that there was a need for that. I take what she has said and ask about the provision that she mentioned—subsection (5)(a)—which allows the Secretary of State to make regulations as to,
	"how an authority for the purposes of subsection (1)(a) is to be given".
	Are the Government minded to do anything on that at the moment, or is that just something that will be there if events show that there is a problem with "authority" and "consent"?
	Secondly, I do not believe that the Committee has given this very important clause as much scrutiny as it might have done. The Minister also referred, very importantly, to subsection (6) which, in effect, allows the Secretary of State to create a regime within which the private sector can access the limited amount of data that is available under the clause. It is a hugely important clause. Have the Government got anywhere on that? All of us will be relying on an astute policy and provision by the Government under that subsection to ensure that this bit of the Bill works happily for all concerned, particularly the citizen.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We are working on that, which is why I thought it would comfort the noble Lord to talk about the work we have already started, mentioned by my honourable friend Tony McNulty in another place, on authority. We are going to see how this will be dealt with. It would be important that those who seek to use these services should be approved and accredited in the way I describe. That gives us the safety belt, the security that we need, to ensure that we are not going to have rogue elements entrusted with this sort of process. That is a good, practical way of dealing with it.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 179 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	[Amendment No. 180 not moved.]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 181:
	Page 12, line 38, at end insert—
	"( ) The right of the Secretary of State to provide information under subsection (1) shall cease if and when and to the extent that consent so to do is withdrawn by the individual concerned."

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I can move this very quickly. It is a self-explanatory amendment, which is rare. Simply, if someone who has given consent to our favourite supermarket to access our data gets fed up with that supermarket and withdraws consent, will that do the trick and bring the rights to an end? If not, my amendment is necessary. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I do not think that the noble Lord will find that this amendment is necessary. As I have already said on previous groups of amendments, there is only a limited list of information which may be provided in response to a verification application under Clause 14. Organisations will be provided only with the specific information that supports their businesses; that is, only a limited part of the individual's entry as permitted under Clause 14(1).
	In addition, I should make it clear that an individual gives consent to only one verification at a time. You cannot give blanket verification to an agency. You say, "I will allow you to verify my name and address for this singular transaction". Those who have that verification will get that information verified to them on that occasion. If they then want another transaction, the individual would have to give consent. It is very similar to the procedure with banks and others: we have to give—I will use the noble Lord's word—"express" and informed consent. I hope the noble Lord will see that this amendment would therefore be unnecessary.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful and, indeed, I would see that if I found that the language of Clause 14 made that clear. But I do not think it does, does it? There is no reference to specific consent in relation to one application for information.
	I do not want to prolong the discussion, but the Minister might just have a look at that. I think it needs a bit more drafting. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 182 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	[Amendment No. 183 not moved.]
	[Amendment No. 184 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	[Amendments Nos. 185 to 187 not moved.]
	Clause 14 agreed to.
	Clause 15 [Power to make public services conditional on identity checks]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 188:
	Page 14, line 10, leave out paragraphs (a) to (c) and insert "one of either an ID card or other evidence of his identity"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 189 to 191. Clause 15(1) deals with the power to make public services conditional on identity checks. Amendment No. 188 would ensure that the regulations to allow that cannot make it possible for a citizen to have to produce an ID card and other evidence of registrable facts about himself. That is wholly unnecessary. One or the other is fair enough. That is what Amendment No. 188 addresses.
	I do not propose to proceed with Amendment No. 189 in this group. Amendment No. 190 relates to Clause 15(2), which prevents a public authority denying a public service to somebody where that service is provided free of charge. The amendment adds, "or on a subsidised basis". I am thinking, for example, of the provision of medicines where there is a prescription charge. It ought not to be possible for somebody to go to the chemist and be denied the provision of medicaments simply because they are not free. That is what Amendment No. 190 addresses.
	Amendment No. 191 amends Clause 15. It simply alters the wording of the clause. As it is drafted, one needs to have the words that the amendment inserts into line 23. At the moment, the subsection states:
	"Nothing in this section authorises the making of regulations the effect of which would be to require an individual . . . to produce such a card otherwise than for purposes connected with an application by him for the provision of a public service".
	I suggest that all one needs to add is, "to produce such a card at any time". I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I support Amendment No. 190. Will the Government think again regarding circumstances where people have subsidised treatment from the NHS? The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, rightly referred to prescription charges. If people who pay prescription charges—I declare an interest because I am required to pay them—are not included, one knocks out a huge tranche of people in this country. I understand the noble Lord's concerns with the other issues, but Amendment No. 190 has to be considered.

Lord Monson: I support Amendment No. 190, which is totally necessary, but I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has got the drafting of Amendment No. 191 entirely right. Is he not referring to page 14, line 24, rather than line 23? In speaking to Amendment No. 191, he seemed to be talking about that paragraph.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Lord; he is quite right. The amendment does refer to line 23, and I confused myself by mistakenly quoting line 24. Line 23 says:
	"to carry an ID card with him at all times".
	My suspicious legal mind said that that could be overridden. I perfectly understand what the Government seek to do here. They are saying that an individual shall not have to carry an ID card at all, but the provision actually says that he shall not have,
	"to carry an ID card with him at all times".
	My sinister legal mind says that if the provision were to carry it for 23 hours of the day, it would be within the legislation. The noble Baroness smiles at my cynicism, but I think that she will have to agree with my legal logic and, hence, my amendment.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The look on the Minister's face made me realise that in trying to be brief I have been too brief and not clear enough. My concern is that those who are required to pay prescription charges because they do not fall into the category by age or by low income where they can obtain free prescription charges, should not be required to produce an ID card to gain access to services before all people are required, when the provisions in Clauses 6 and 7 come into place, to be registered for an identity card. I hope that does not make my earlier clarity even less clear.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. I thought for one moment that she was suggesting that she might have reached an age where she would be so entitled, and I just simply did not believe it. That was why I was registering such shock. Lawyers are known for their inventive minds, but the noble Lord's ingenious construction on Clause 15(3)(a) even beggared my belief. I will say why.
	Clause 15 provides a power to link the identity cards scheme with the provision of public services. The clause reflects one of the objectives of the identity cards scheme; namely, to simplify the checks on eligibility for services and to reduce fraudulent use of services. The clause contains a number of safeguards. The effect of subsection (2) is that payments provided under an enactment—for example, social security benefits—and public services provided free of charge may not be made conditional on the production of an ID card prior to the cardholder being the subject of a Clause 6 compulsion order. I understand that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord are content that that should be the position, but they wish to press it further.
	Subsection (3) expressly provides that Clause 15 does not enable regulations to be made, which would require an individual to carry an ID card with him at all times, or to produce an ID card, other than in the context of applying for a public service. I would like to make clear that our interpretation is consistent with that which the noble Lord assumed; namely, that the person does not have to carry the ID card with him. The subsection (3) safeguards continue to apply whether or not a person is subject to compulsory registration.
	The effect of Amendment No. 188 would be that regulations making the provision of a public service conditional on the production of an ID card would have to allow for other evidence of identity to be used instead. The result would be that less secure forms of identity could be used, which would impact on the scope for reducing fraudulent use of public services.
	Securing the efficient and effective provision of public services is one of the aims of the scheme, as I have already said. This would be undermined if individuals were able to access them by the production of a document that was less secure than the ID card. It would be clear that fraudsters and individuals not entitled to access public services would naturally be attracted to using the less secure documents as a means of attempting to "prove" their entitlement to use them.
	When individuals present themselves at, for example, a DWP office and make an application for benefits, it must be right that they prove their identity before they receive the public service. The issue of entitlement to receive benefits will rest with the Department for Work and Pensions. The ID card scheme will enable individuals to prove that they are who they say they are, as well as other registrable facts, such as nationality and residential status, which may have an impact on their entitlement to use the service they have applied for.
	We will, of course, ensure that individuals who have lost their ID cards or who have had them damaged or stolen will not be disadvantaged. Individuals will be able to give their national identity register number, along with a biometric, for their identity to be verified. Furthermore, in the context of the National Health Service, to which both noble Lords referred, no one requiring emergency medical care will be denied treatment. We have always made clear that emergency treatment will never be denied to any person, regardless of their circumstances.
	Amendments Nos. 189 and 190 extend the limitation in Clause 15(2). Amendment No. 189 would extend subsection 2(a) so that it covered not only payments received under an enactment but payments made under an enactment. Amendment No. 190 would extend subsection (2)(b) so that it covered not just public services that are free of charge but those that are subsidised.
	The safeguards in Clause 15(2) are intended to strike a balance between the considerable benefits that will be derived from the links between ID cards and public services and the need, prior to compulsion, to ensure that certain fundamental services, such as healthcare and social security, will not be dependent on the production of an ID card. The clause strikes the right balance.
	Amendments Nos. 189 and 190 would in practice mean that, prior to compulsion, no meaningful link could be made between ID cards and any form of public service. For example, regulations could not require people applying for a firearms certificate to produce an ID card, as a payment is required. In his eloquent speech, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, raised NHS entitlement. He used the example of a prescription, which is partly funded, as did the noble Baroness. We could also use the example of dental treatment, which is also partly funded. Although Amendment No. 190 would prevent regulations under Clause 15 making the provision of NHS dental or medical treatment conditional on the production of the ID card, I can confirm that, in advance of compulsion, we are not actively pursuing placing such a requirement on individuals.
	Amendment No. 191 would amend Clause 15(3)(a) to state that no regulations could be made to require an individual to carry an ID card at any time. As I said, that amendment is unnecessary, as the Bill already prevents the making of regulations requiring individuals to carry identity cards with them at all times. However, once compulsion has been introduced, there will be occasions on which individuals may be required to produce their ID cards to access a public service. The amendment would directly contradict the requirement in Clause 15(1). For that reason, we cannot accept it.
	Unlike the other amendments in the group, that amendment does not tighten Clause 15. Rather, it removes the second of the safeguards in subsection (3): preventing regulations from requiring the production of an ID card other than in connection with an application for a public service. That safeguard goes hand in hand with a safeguard against requirements to carry. A safeguard on carrying would be rendered meaningless if there were countless situations in which the production of an identity card was mandatory. Therefore, Clause 15(3)(b) provides that there may be no such requirements other than those that relate to public services for which the person concerned has applied. That prohibition, like the prohibition on requirements to carry the card, continues to apply even after it is compulsory to register.
	I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will accept that Amendment No. 191 is not necessary. If Clause 15(3)(a) read "at any time", it would conflict with the requirement that the card must be produced on application for a public service. I do not think that we need it. Read together, paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 15(3) mean that you can be required to carry the card only to the extent that you are required to produce it. That extent is clearly set out. If read together, they make sense and give the noble Lord what he seeks. They get the balance about right.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am most grateful for that careful explanation of the Government's position on Clause 15, which is very important. I will have to read what she said about Amendment No. 191 and carrying "at any time". I thought that there was a difference between carrying an ID card and producing it. Clause 15(1) is solely about producing your ID card if you have one to access a public service. To be honest, I did not follow what the noble Baroness said when she made reference to someone applying for a public service under subsection (1). If he or she produces an ID card, surely that is an end of it. The social security office cannot say, "Oh, that is not enough. We want more information".

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: If we did not have the use of an ID card and we followed the noble Lord's amendment so that there was not a provision for an ID card, in order to get the service, one has to produce something. Bearing in mind that we now believe ID cards are likely to be the best possible form of identifier because they would have the biometrics and the checks that we have spoken about, something else would have to be produced. Whatever else is produced is likely to be of less quality.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I accept that point. We have come to a state of enlightenment on this because I accept that, if you have an ID card, the social security office should be entitled to require you to produce it. However, this wording would allow an officious person in a social security office to see an ID card and then say, "Well, I want further evidence of registrable facts. I am not entirely happy about that.". That is what the clause says. The noble Baroness may say that that is not what is intended, but that is what it says. Simple rewording could achieve the point that the noble Baroness rightly makes and the point that I make.
	As regards Amendment No. 190 and prescription charges, I understood the noble Baroness to say that the Government do not intend that this provision should stand in the way of people getting prescriptions; that is, it will not require them to get an ID card before universal compulsion—I think that the noble Baroness said that. I wonder how that will be enforceable given that chemists are independent proprietors and purveyors of medicines. Do the Government intend to make it compulsory on all chemists to abide by that policy provision? It is an important matter and we need to be sure that we are not erecting inadvertent hurdles.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I have tried to be clear that we are not actively pursuing this. We have dealt with the free provision of services. We are all agreed that that is appropriate. We have looked at the issues around prescriptions and understand the basis of that, as we also understand it in relation to dental treatment. For that reason, we will not actively pursue that provision, particularly in respect of compulsion.
	Moreover, Clause 18(1) prohibits requirements for an ID card being made unless the exemption in Clause 18(2) applies. We believe, therefore, that the combination of those two provisions enables us to provide a reassurance on this point. Clause 18(2) states:
	"Each of the following is a case in which such a condition or requirement may be imposed in relation to or on an individual—
	(a) where the condition or requirement is imposed in accordance with regulations under section 15, or in accordance with provision made by or under any other enactment;
	(b) where provision is made allowing the individual to satisfy the condition or other requirement using reasonable alternative methods of establishing his identity;
	(c) where the individual is of a description of individuals who are subject to compulsory registration".
	I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords on this. It is clear that at this early stage we do not wish to be unnecessarily restrictive by ruling it out entirely. Over time the identity card will become the gold standard way of proving identity throughout the United Kingdom. We are clear that, as well as providing a more convenient means of access for those entitled to services, the identity card will also help to prevent unauthorised access to them. However, use of the cards for devolved services such as health and education is a matter for the devolved administrations. But it will mean that the whole of the UK will be covered. I say that in anticipation of questions from the noble Baroness, who has been anxious to confirm whether I am referring to England and Wales, or to Scotland and Northern Ireland as well.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am not sure whether that last exposition has left me certain of how things stand. Would it be asking too much for the noble Baroness perhaps to consider the debate and confirm that the provisions of Clause 15(2)(b) will not be an impediment to acquiring prescriptions and accessing dental services where the person concerned has no identity card this side of compulsion?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I shall be happy to do that. As I have indicated, we are not actively pursuing that at the moment. I shall write to both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: In that case, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 189 to 191 not moved.]
	Clause 15 agreed to.
	Clause 16 agreed to.
	Clause 17 [Power to provide for checks on the Register]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 192:
	Page 15, line 33, leave out paragraph (b).

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The heading for Clause 17 refers to the:
	"Power to provide for checks on the Register";
	that is, for checks and not for information. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the Long Title refers to issues of identity rather than information. Amendment No. 192 would leave out altogether Clause 17(1)(b). It would mean that:
	"The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision authorising a person providing a public service in respect of which—
	(a) a condition is imposed under section 15
	to be provided with information recorded in the Register that he requires for the purpose of ascertaining or verifying registrable facts".
	Perhaps it will help the Committee if I speak at the same time to Amendment No. 193. That may expedite matters and make my short dissertation clearer.
	Amendment No. 192 would strike out paragraph (b). I do not like the paragraph because at the end it refers to "any other enactment". It states,
	"(b) a condition for the production of an ID card, or of evidence of registrable facts, or both, is imposed by or under any other enactment".
	I do not like the provision because it is very broad and unnecessary; it would be eliminated by the amendment.
	Amendment No. 193 would cut out the word "ascertaining" in the provision,
	"for the purpose of ascertaining or verifying registrable facts".
	I believe that this clause should be confined to verification and should not allow a body to "ascertain" facts; that is, to gain access to facts that he, she or it does not currently have. Indeed, it goes dead counter to the heading of the clause, which refers to the power to check, not to powers to inform or supply information. One has to be cautious about and, indeed, jealous of citizen information. It is one thing to provide identity checks, but it is another thing to allow public services, which are very widely defined in the Bill, to go on fishing expeditions in the register seeking facts which may not be directly germane to what is in hand. It goes too wide. The right to seek new information rather than simply to verify it is not consonant with the heading of the clause and would not be a wise provision. On that basis, I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: In his amendment to strike out the word "ascertaining" from Clause 17(1) the noble Lord goes to the heart of the fears that have been expressed by many noble Lords in our debates regarding the purpose of the register and the likely ways in which verification may be required and made. However, I must put a question to him which takes us back to Clause 1. I have to ask it simply because I do not have with me the Official Report for our first day in Committee. I cannot recall whether the noble Lord moved at that stage an amendment to Clause 1(3)(b) to remove the word "ascertained" as it appears there. If he did, I regret that at the time I was not sufficiently with it to take note. If not, would he consider it proper to entertain removing the word from Clause 1(3)(b)? He may want to consider that between now and Report.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question, to which the answer is yes. Clause 1(3) is the most troublesome subsection in the whole Bill. As I said both at Second Reading and on the first day in Committee, it is drafted in an extremely obscure way. I think that I did table an amendment to take out the word "ascertained", but I cannot be certain.
	Clause 17 is very important. As worded, there appears to be no restriction on someone asking the national identity card register for information under paragraph 9 of Schedule 1. Data under that paragraph are jealously protected elsewhere in the Bill, but are not protected at all here. That is another reason why these amendments are both necessary and good.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I say yet again to the noble Lord that I do not think they are necessary. I can reassure him that it will not be possible for people to enter into what might be described as a fishing expedition, and I understand his concern about that. I shall explain how the clause works and in so doing reassure him that his anxiety in this regard is not merited.
	The provision of a public service may be linked to the identity card scheme in the two ways we have spoken about already. The first way would be to forge such a link by using a power in an existing enactment which relates specifically to the public service concerned. Where no such power exists, the second way would be to use Clause 15 of the Bill to make regulations. Those are the two ways.
	Clause 17 enables information recorded in the register to be provided to public service providers for the purpose of ascertaining, as the noble Lord rightly said, or verifying registrable facts about a person applying for services. The noble Baroness is right: that is the same phrase we use in Clause 1. Clause 17(1)(a) refers to public services which have been linked to identity cards under Clause 15. Clause 17(1)(b) refers to public services which have been linked to identity cards under another enactment. Amendment No. 192 would remove Clause 17(1)(b) and therefore the ability of the Secretary of State to provide information recorded in the register to public service providers who have forged a link with identity cards other than through the power under Clause 15. So it would remove the second limb I have just outlined.
	Where a public service provider has existing powers which could be exercised in order to require identity card and/or NIR checks, it makes sense for that power to be relied on, for example, by amending existing regulations. The power under Clause 15 is intended as a fall-back provision where public service providers do not have the necessary power elsewhere in legislation. There is no reason why public service providers which rely on existing powers to forge a link with identity cards should be treated differently under Clause 17 from public service providers who rely on Clause 15. That would be the effect of Amendment No. 192.
	It may be helpful at this point to clarify that the purpose of Clause 17 is to ensure that public service providers are able to check that those applying for services are in fact entitled to those services. It will also mean that individuals have a convenient means of demonstrating their entitlement to public services. I can reassure the Committee that Parliament will have oversight of any regulations tabled because, as noble Lords will remember, Clause 17 is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
	Amendment No. 193 has the effect that the Secretary of State may not make regulations authorising a person providing a public service to be provided with information from the register for the purpose of ascertaining—I emphasise that—registrable facts about the individual. The public service provider would be entitled to be provided with information from the register only for the purpose of verifying registrable facts about an individual. I understand that the noble Lord would like to separate those two categories. That would be impractical and would limit the effectiveness of Clause 17 and its convenience to the individual.
	Amendment No. 193 would impact on the ability of the scheme to provide a flexible service to the citizen and reduce bureaucracy within public services. In appropriate circumstances, it is envisaged that an individual could produce an ID card and consent for a public service to ascertain relevant information about him or her from the register, rather than being required to fill in a form and providing information that would then be verified against the register.
	Indeed, it would be a particularly convenient service when a person is asked to provide information that may be on the register but that he or she may not know instantly or have to hand—for instance, one's national insurance number. Many people know their national insurance number by heart. But some of us do not and I should make a full and frank disclosure in that regard myself.
	Finally, to reiterate what I said a moment ago, plans to conduct such services would be laid out in regulations under Clause 17, which will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and therefore overseen by Parliament.
	The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, was troubled earlier about why we have to ask for both ID card and other evidence. I should like to clarify the position because it feeds into this debate. It may be necessary in some circumstances to check that the person with the card is really the holder and not, for example, his identical twin or an impostor. There are a number of identical twins and we may therefore ask, for example, for a PIN number. We envisage that individuals will have a PIN number which they can use to verify that they are who they say they are, or we may use a biometric, such as a fingerprint, to obtain confirmation.
	Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness have been concerned about "ascertain". Let me verify that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, did not table an amendment to remove "ascertain" from Clause 1(3)(b). I could not recall that he had—the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, could not recall that he had either—and therefore I assure him that he did not. There will be circumstances in which it is in the public interest to ascertain facts—for example, when the police wish to match a fingerprint left at the scene of a serious crime but no match can be made with the police national computer records and information. It is clearly important for us to be able to "ascertain" in such cases in order to deliver on the criminal justice agenda and to bring those who may have committed offences to justice.
	The noble Lord asked, too, about what information will be provided. Regulations under Clause 17 will make different provisions for different public services, and only the information relevant to the rules of entitlement will be provided. I hope with that additional elucidation the noble Lord and the noble Baroness will feel content.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: As usual, I am grateful to the Minister for that full explanation. A number of issues arise from it—I think we all agree that this is a complicated clause—and I should like to start with the question of amendments to Clause 1. I did table an amendment to Clause 1 and, if reference is made to Hansard, I think you will find that I expatiated at length upon the inadequacies of subsection (3)(b). But let us not get bogged down with that.
	The Minister said that there will be regulations in relation to Clause 17 but I do not think that we should allow access to paragraph 9 data unless it is specified on the face of the Bill. In all other parts of the Bill the Government have taken great care to say when there will and when there will not be access to the highly sensitive data in paragraph 9. The Government need to let the Committee know whether or not they intend, or contemplate, making regulations that will give public service providers access to paragraph 9 information and, if so, what provisions the regulations will contain. Otherwise we should put something in this clause about that.
	My ears pricked up when the Minister referred to the police finding fingerprints at the scene of a crime and using the ascertainment limb of the clause to obtain information. Does that mean that the police will be able to provide the national identity card register with a fingerprint and check whether anyone on the register has a matching fingerprint?
	If it does, I had not realised that the clause went that far and it excites rather than satisfies my anxieties about it. It is something that I shall want to think about and no doubt colleagues on the Conservative Benches will want to contemplate the matter rather carefully.
	The first point that caught my ear when the Minister was speaking was her reference to the convenience to the citizen of information being ascertainable rather than verifiable under this clause. I am not sure my question is fair, but I have no option because the wording of Clause 17 (1) is so extraordinarily obscure. It states:
	"The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision authorising a person providing a public service",
	but the person providing a public service cannot be an individual can they?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Which clause is the noble Lord referring to?

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Clause 17 (1), which starts by saying:
	"The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision authorising a person providing a public service".
	It continues with paragraphs (a) and (b) and then says that they may,
	"be provided with information recorded in the Register that he requires for the purpose of ascertaining or verifying registrable facts about an individual who has applied for the provision of the service".
	The clause starts by talking about a person providing a public service and ends by talking about
	"an individual who has applied for the provision of the service".
	That individual cannot be a person providing a public service, because the Bill uses "individual" in contradistinction to "person" throughout. I am left baffled.
	I did not understand, unless, in the context of that last part of subsection (1) the Minister was saying that it could be convenient to an individual to provide information to the national register for the purposes of allowing someone who needed to check on that information to do it via access to the national register.
	We are getting into deep waters here and sometimes the mechanism for discussing a Bill is not quite fit for purpose. We have reached an impasse. I have asked a series of complicated questions and the Minister has given some lucid but complicated answers and I am not sure that they match. I suggest—and I see the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, nodding—that this is one of those clauses where a conversation outside the Chamber may satisfy the Minister or me or both of us. On that basis, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 193 not moved.]
	Clause 17 agreed to.
	Clause 18 [Prohibition on requirements to produce identity cards]:

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 194:
	Page 17, line 2, at end insert—
	"( ) It shall be unlawful for any person imposing any condition or requirement in relation to or on an individual in cases falling within subsection (2) to discriminate against such a person or group of persons on any grounds, including disability, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic or national origins, colour, race, citizenship or immigration status."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The purpose of this amendment is to focus on the importance of avoiding discrimination against individuals in the operation of the ID card system. Clause 18 says that we cannot be forced to produce our identity card in the so-called period of voluntary operation of the scheme before Clause 6 is invoked. Protection from compulsion to produce the card during that so-called period of voluntary operation is cut back by the terms of subsection (2), which sets out when we can be forced to produce the card even in the early stages of the ID card system.
	My amendment is directed at what happens when we are asked to produce our identity card—perhaps to prove our identity to the police or to obtain access to services. Surely, it is vital that those who require us to produce our identity card should not be allowed to make the decision of whether they should ask to see it or not on the basis of discriminating against certain groups.
	I have drawn attention to the need to avoid discrimination on the grounds of,
	"disability, sexual orientation, nationality, ethnic or national origins, colour, race, citizenship or immigration status".
	There should be clarity about this on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: As the noble Baroness has explained, the amendment would place on the face of the Bill a subsection which would make it unlawful to discriminate against an individual in cases falling within Clause 18(2). I am happy to say that this amendment is unnecessary. The Race Relations Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, the Disability Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Act will all apply in the normal way to prevent requirements for production of cards being made in a discriminatory way. The danger of accepting the noble Baroness's amendment is that by restating the duty to avoid discrimination here we might cast doubt on whether it applies generally to the remainder of the Act, and so it is unnecessary.
	The Race Relations Act will apply to the administration of the identity cards scheme because the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 extended its remit to cover the actions of public authorities—the Human Rights Act already binds public authorities. There is nothing on the face of the Bill which would override the application of the legislation ensuring equal treatment and prohibiting discrimination. As ever with enabling legislation, the key to compatibility is the manner in which the scheme is administered. The Government fully intend to administer the scheme in a non-discriminatory manner.
	I am sure that the noble Baroness will be aware that discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is already prohibited in some cases. The Equality Bill currently before the House contains power to prohibit such discrimination more generally. The law on discrimination will apply in relation to identity cards as it does to other aspects of life. It is neither necessary nor desirable to make specific provision here, so, having heard that explanation, I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am rather disappointed by the response from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I appreciate that it is the Government's intention that the system should not overall be applied in any discriminatory way. I am aware that the Minister thinks that the amendment it is not necessary or desirable, but my argument is that it is necessary to have clarity on the issue.
	This is an enabling Bill in a very rough form at the moment. I am also aware that, when noble Lords approached Second Reading we were sent briefings that showed that organisations such as the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants believed that there had not been a full race equality impact assessment. I raised that issue at Second Reading and the Minister was very kind in a letter that she wrote afterwards to address some of my concerns, but the feeling remained that sufficient attention had not been given to the race equality impact assessment throughout the Bill. As a result of that, I looked at an amendment that had been tabled in another place by my honourable and right honourable friends and felt that that too had not addressed the full range of those who might feel that they could be discriminated against when required to produce their ID cards. I feel that it is the production of the cards that could lead to difficulties with discrimination. Therefore, given the briefings that I have been given, I remain dissatisfied with the courteous and I am sure well intentioned response from the Minister. It is with no great pleasure that I feel that I must test the opinion of the Committee.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 194) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 105; Not-Contents, 120.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
	Clause 18 agreed to.
	Clause 19 [Public authorities etc.]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 195:
	Page 17, line 12, leave out "connected with" and insert "necessary for"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I address the group of amendments comprising Amendments Nos. 195, 196, 197, 198 and 200 to Clause 19. Clause 19 allows the Secretary of State, without the consent of the individual, to provide a person with information recorded in that individual's entry in the register in the circumstances set out in Clause 19(1). My amendments would replace the words "connected with" with the phrase "necessary for" in five different lines of Clause 19. Clause 19(2) specifies those authorities to whom the Secretary of State can, without consent, provide information as I have just mentioned.
	My feeling, oft expressed—it is a sentiment expressed by others as well—is that we must be jealous of the privacy of the citizen and jealous of allowing disclosure of information in any citizen's entry in the national identity register to any outside person or body, particularly where that is done without the consent of the individual concerned.
	Clause 19(2) allows the provision of information, for example to the director-general of the security service,
	"for purposes connected with the carrying out of any of that Service's functions".
	My amendment would make the measure read,
	"for purposes necessary for the carrying out of any of that Service's functions".
	It would constitute a slight but significant tightening of the hurdle that should be leaped before the information can be so provided. I beg to move.

Baroness Noakes: My noble friends Lady Anelay of St Johns and Lady Seccombe have added their names to this amendment. From these Benches I support everything that the noble Lord has said.

Lord Hylton: I should like to do the same for reasons that I gave earlier this evening.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, to the fray. I am glad to see her. For the reasons that I will give, I do not think that these amendments are necessary. The effect of Amendments Nos. 195 to 198 would be to restrict the provision of information to the security and intelligence services and the Serious Organised Crime Agency to purposes necessary for their functions rather than connected with their functions—the term used in the Bill. I understand the noble Lord is saying that there is a significant and important difference between the two phrases.
	Amendment No. 200 would make a parallel change in relation to the provision of information to the police. It is, of course, important that the information provided to these agencies and to the police is proportionate to the reason for which the information is being requested. This amendment is, however, unnecessary. The information that is connected with those functions will largely be the same as information that is necessary for those functions. As the noble Lord will know, the European Convention on Human Rights test is that interferences with the right to a private life under Article 8 of the convention must be necessary in a democratic society. That safeguard will apply to the operation of the register by virtue of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act in any event. The case law on Article 8 establishes that "necessary" in this context does not mean absolutely necessary or indispensable, but it is really a question of whether there is a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim to be achieved.
	The Secretary of State will be under a duty to act proportionately in carrying out all his functions under the Bill. There will be substantial safeguards to ensure that he does so. The relevant commissioner—either the Intelligence Service Commissioner in the case of the intelligence services or the national identity scheme commissioner in the case of all other bodies that may be authorised to receive information without consent—can review the situations in which information has been provided.
	The Secretary of State and recipients of information will also have to comply with the regulations set out in Clause 23. As I mentioned earlier, we plan to build an accreditation system which establishes a set of standards that organisations must comply with in order to be provided with information without consent. I noted with pleasure that the noble Lord indicated his assent to taking steps to ensure that accreditation is applied appropriately. I see that he nods his assent now. The specific details of how these organisations meet these standards can then vary depending on the information for which they have a genuine need, the internal systems and procedures in use in their organisations and their existing IT infrastructure.
	It is intended that each of these organisations will work with the Secretary of State to have their accreditation status reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Indeed, in many cases it is anticipated that accreditation would be provided to individual business units within an organisation only in order to reflect the different information requirements and systems that each unit might have. We do not think that one size will necessarily fit all because of the different functions different units have. Once granted this accreditation would not be transferable to different units within the same organisation. The accreditation status would also be subject to review and would be withdrawn if the organisation's processes slipped below the ID card agency's required standards. I hope the noble Lord will appreciate that the way in which the scheme as proposed in the Bill has been structured covers those issues in the way he wants, and that he is reassured by that.

The Earl of Erroll: The Minister made an excellent case for these amendments. I could not work out what was left with regard to "connected with" that could not be covered by "necessary for", particularly as regards the phrase "genuine need" that the Minister used. You have all these protections with regard to the genuine need of various departments to have this information, so why do you need the wider phrase "connected with"? The regulations will restrict the measure so the Minister has made an excellent case for these amendments.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I very much support what the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has said. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, put his finger on something that we ought to watch for. The noble Baroness in her charming way—I am quite sure she would be no part of any government that would abuse this—overwhelmingly made the case for the word "necessary" being perfectly adequate to the needs of any reasonable government. She has not sought to make the case for the wider words "connected with". If we are to permit the wider words "connected with", we ought to be given an explanation of why those wider words are needed rather than an explanation of why there is a backstop in the form of the European Convention on Human Rights. That is the gist of the noble Baroness's argument—that if they went too far they would contravene the convention and then the citizen would have the right to take a case to Strasbourg. That is, of course, one of the easiest and most convenient things you can ever offer to a citizen. However, one must be careful about introducing irony into politics because the irony always drops out of the printed page and I shall be accused of saying how easy and convenient it is to take a case to Strasbourg. People will say, "It is a lawyer".

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I would be delighted to agree with the noble and learned Lord.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: In that case the public would say, "It is two lawyers". In my case at least, if I were younger, it might be very profitable. However, there is a serious point here. I support the amendment.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I think you would say, "Two lawyers too many". I am grateful, as ever, to the noble Baroness for presenting an extremely clear argument on why the amendments are not acceptable. I am equally grateful to the two noble Lords who have just spoken as they have made my riposte. The only thing I would add is that if the Minister is ever out of power, and if I have to take a matter like this to the European Court, I would as well instruct her as anyone. Her powers of advocacy are formidable.
	Frankly, however, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, put it so well, one is not in the business of forcing citizens into the European Court to get their remedies. One of the problems of this wonderful House is that we are so absorbed and intrigued by the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, and all that is therewith, that we forget that the great British public know very little about either of those two pieces of legislation. I always try to look for legislation that will be user-friendly—and by that I do not mean lawyer-friendly; I mean citizen-friendly.
	I hoped that adding these words would not distort the intent of the Government, and I think that what the Minister has said makes clear that it does not do so, but rather reinforces it. Her argument is that the words are superfluous, because if you go through all the Euro stuff, you come out with what I have suggested is here. I am trying to make this user-friendly. I do not want to clutter the Bill with lots of unnecessary language, but I did think there was virtue in putting that little word in because it puts people on notice. It gives a person attempting to get his head around any of this some hint that "necessary" is the test. However, I do not propose to labour the set of amendments, and beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 196 to 198 not moved.]
	[Amendment No. 199 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	[Amendment No. 200 not moved.]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 201:
	Page 17, line 27, after "of" insert "serious"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Amendments Nos. 203 and 209 are grouped with this amendment. I suspect we are on broadly the same territory as we were with the last group of amendments, and I anticipate that the Minister will say in other words what she has just said. To put it briefly, there is a general argument that was advanced at Second Reading, and many times since, about the scope of this Bill as originally intended and the scope of the register.
	There has been function creep. It is fair to remember that when David Blunkett first stood up in the House of Commons and said that we were going to have national identity cards, he put it on a minimalist basis. We now have an identity card that cannot by any means be described in that way. I, along with my colleagues on these Benches—and this concern is shared widely—do not want to see this register and the information on it used for any but the most essential purposes. I briefly remind the Committee that in Clause 1, the key clause, one of the tests of something "necessary in the public interest" is:
	"for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime"—
	any crime. The most basic, simple criminal act, such as a road traffic offence, is strictly within the purview of this Bill.
	I understand that issues of serious crime and national security should be within its purview, but, wherever possible and sensible, I want it confined to those categories when we get around to clauses such as Clause 19, which, without the consent of the individual concerned, entitles the Secretary of State to share information on the register—including paragraph 9 information, in the case of serious crime—with the agencies enumerated in Clause 19(2).
	Amendment No. 203 refers to Clause 19(4), which entitles the tax authorities and Customs to have access to the information, apart from paragraph 9 information. I do not see why there should be any allowance for the tax authorities and Customs and Revenue to have access to any of that information without the consent of the citizen, other than for, as I have put it,
	"the interests of national security or for the prevention or detection of serious crime".
	I shall be interested to hear the Government's justification for giving them those much wider powers.
	Finally, in Clause 19(7), I again want a limitation to be made on the power of the Secretary of State under that subsection to only those matters of national security or the prevention or detection of serious crime—remembering that serious crime is defined by reference to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which, it is fair to say, is a good working definition of what most people think to be serious crime. I beg to move.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I support the purport of these amendments. I will not repeat what the noble Lord has said, but I ask the following question for clarification: where subsection (8) refers to chief officers and chief constables of police and other services, am I right in thinking that that means that the information can, with the agreement of that chief officer, be passed to any constable within that service, where he thinks that is necessary and the chief constable has approved it?

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I merely rise to welcome this opportunity for the Government to clarify further what level of crime it is intended will be covered in which parts of this Bill. The Minister sought to reassure me on my previous amendment with regard to the way different parts of the Bill interact with each other to ensure that, in some circumstances, only a serious crime is addressed. I know she will accept that all noble Lords are determined that any scheme that is introduced should be able to accommodate the needs of the police in preventing and detecting serious crime, and I am sure we will return on Report to a proper discussion of the purposes of the Bill. What the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has done here is direct our attention to the operation of part of the Bill. I would welcome the Minister's further clarification and reassurances on the matters that has raised with regard to crime.

Lord Hylton: I support this group of amendments, which seem to me to be reasonable and necessary. There is a widespread perception outside Parliament and in the country that the Government are chiselling away at traditional liberties of every kind. No doubt this is motivated by a desire to do something effective about terrorism, but the cumulative effect of all these measures is to cause alarm. The Minister could allay some of that by being a little conciliatory and helpful on this group.

The Earl of Erroll: Funnily enough, I disagree slightly on the matter of serious crime. I would prefer to see something like "crimes against the person". Most of the public want to feel that they are safe walking around the streets, that they are safe at night, and that you catch the burglars, the muggers, the murderers and rapists. The public would feel that there was some genuine use for this legislation as regards that sort of thing. To many people, serious crime tends to be the big crimes, the big gangs and so on. If it was useful for crimes against the person, I do not think the public would have any problems with releasing their information to the police if it was going to help clear up those sorts of things.
	We come, therefore, to the real purpose of the ID card. It is certainly not what has been published; we have dealt with that already. The purpose is for the commissioners of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to be able to track things. This is what really worries me. I think the purpose is to be able to track money. At the moment, we have a very high tax regime. We know there are a lot of people out there perhaps not complying exactly with all the things they should be, and that there is a large grey economy. Isabelle and I have always been careful about this. Having a title, you have to be careful, as sooner or later you will be investigated. I have been investigated twice in the past, merely because they could not believe a Lord was as poor as I was. Actually, I asked for it the second time around.
	The trouble is that this will be applied selectively. When HMRC decides that it wants to investigate someone, it can do a trawl in connection with that investigation to try to find out what else is happening. If you are one of the unlucky ones within whatever percentage it is of those under investigation, it is going to get you, because very few people out there can remember everything they have paid for in cash and so on.
	If HMRC is to be given this sort of powers, that has to go hand in glove with rationalising whatever forces the grey economy to exist. Therefore, the tax system and other areas must be reviewed so that they do not bear unfairly on those who, by lottery, are picked out for investigation. That is why I would like to see this part of the Bill suppressed until there is a fairer system that would not give rise to unfair investigations into those who are picked out. Paragraphs (a) to (f) should be left out at this stage. When there is a review of the tax system that is fairer, maybe we should consider putting them in—but not yet.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, for not agreeing with the amendment. I think that the amendment is unnecessary and that the Bill is already in the correct state. I shall describe why.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and try to reassure him, that we are not seeking to chisel away at civil liberties. There is no intention to cause alarm. Indeed, we hope that much of that which we produce in this Bill will be reassuring and helpful and will enable us to help our citizens to feel more secure and far less alarmed and to deal with a number of the issues that have concerned them. I shall not go through all the reasons that were set out so convincingly at Second Reading.
	Amendment No. 201 would amend Clause 19(3)(b) and restrict the provision of information to the police for the prevention or detection of crime to cases of "serious" crime. That would not be appropriate.
	Paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 information—that is, the audit trail—can be provided only in cases of serious crime. But it would not be appropriate to limit the provision of all the identity and application history information on the register in this way. We went through in detail last time why we thought it was appropriate for the audit trail to be so restricted. For example, if the police were investigating someone who had a collection of identity cards or passports in different names in his possession with a view to establishing whether an offence under Clause 27(5) had been committed, if the amendment were agreed to, the police could not apply for information from the register to verify the entries without the consent of those concerned, because the maximum penalty for possession of documents belonging to another without reasonable excuse is two years. That would not fall into the category of "serious crime". I am fairly confident that the noble Lord would agree that that would be ridiculous, because it would not be able to do that which we would expect to do on behalf of the public.
	I turn to the matter raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, in relation to robbery. If there were true investigations into shoplifting or street robbery, that, too, may not fall within the definition of serious crime; and yet it must be right that we use the information that we have to be able to identify and pursue those who have been guilty of committing criminal offences to the detriment of others and who have victimised decent members of the community in that way.
	Amendment No. 203 would limit the provision of information without consent to the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to circumstances where that information was necessary in the interests of national security or for the prevention and detection of serious crime. It is implicit in regard to all the other proper pursuits of HMRC that it would be disabled from using any information on the register.
	Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has law enforcement responsibilities, often undertaken jointly with the police, but it is also directly involved in the prevention and detection of crime. The Customs side is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of crime including major cases of drug trafficking. The Revenue side also has an important role in law enforcement. We do not think that they should be impeded from discharging their duties appropriately.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Is it not true that drug trafficking would be a serious crime?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: It is a serious crime, but your Lordships will also know that taking drugs from one country to another, sometimes secreted in the body, can be at the lower end of drug trafficking. There is a huge issue as to whether such people would or would not be included. Many of the offences that HMRC pursues go right across the spectrum. The noble Lord would be saying that you could investigate the serious end of crime whereas the other end—a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, who restricted it to offences against the person—would not be prosecuted. Those offences are often seen as equally important—and sometimes more important because they impinge on more people's lives—by the ordinary person in the street.
	Clause 19(4) is necessarily detailed to ensure that all the relevant functions of HMRC are covered so that it will be possible to provide it with information from the national identity register to assist with its functions; for example, in directing its compliance work effectively and reducing the risk of making payments to individuals who have made fraudulent claims. In addition, the boundary between the civil and criminal work of HMRC is a complex area. Disruption of revenue fraud to prevent significant tax loss developing is a key element of the strategy for combating commercial fraud; for example, value added tax and duty on tobacco, oils and alcohol.
	Although it is possible to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators, part of the response in tackling serious tax fraud may be the use of civil procedures to frustrate criminals and prevent loss of revenue. For example, in "missing trader" VAT fraud, where fraudulent VAT repayment claims can amount to millions of pounds, HMRC may use civil procedures to recover the loss of tax. These civil procedures, which can be more effective than criminal proceedings in recovering funds, may include restraint orders where a debt has been established, the appointment of an insolvency practitioner or civil conspiracy proceedings.
	What links these civil disruption activities to criminal investigation is that both require timely and accurate intelligence for effective action to be taken. It makes sense then that the Revenue and Customs can be provided with information held on the national identity register that could help in its investigations regardless of whether it leads to a criminal prosecution. There are also good reasons why we should not limit the provision of this information to "serious" crime. Revenue and Customs deals with child benefit and tax credit fraud. An individual instance of these types of fraud may not appear to be a serious crime but it could be part of a serious organised fraud, and cumulatively these cases where false identities are used could lead to a major loss to public funds. I cannot speak about any ongoing cases, but, as your Lordships will know, at this moment a number of issues are being discussed in the press about the impact of such purported activity.
	Of course, as I have said before, we are not talking of wholesale access to information. We are talking about basic identity details being provided. The Bill already provides that information in paragraph 9 of Schedule 1—the audit trail information which we spent a long time discussing—can be provided only in cases of serious crime. Detailed rules will be laid down in secondary legislation under Clause 23 as to exactly how any request for information to be provided to Revenue and Customs is to be handled.
	Amendment No. 209 would remove the public interest test in Clause 19(7) and limit the Secretary of State to making regulations and orders under the powers in the clause only when necessary in the interests of national security or for the prevention or detection of serious crime, rather than in the public interest as defined in Clause 1(4). Subsection (7) provides a safeguard on the use of the powers by the Secretary of State under subsections (3)(c), (4)(f) and (5) to allow provision of information from the register to the police, Revenue and Customs and government departments for specified purposes. Subsection (7) confines the exercise of those powers to cases in which it is necessary in the public interest as defined in Clause 1(4). Clause 19(3) and (4) already provides power to provide information to the police and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs for the purposes of national security and prevention and detection of crime, so it would not make sense to limit the order-making powers to those purposes.
	The order and regulation-making powers under Clause 19 are the subject of the next group of amendments, but the circumstances in which the police, Revenue and Customs and government authorities may legitimately require verification information without an individual's consent are not limited to the prevention and detection of serious crime or national security. To limit the provision of information without consent in that fashion would be to limit the usefulness of the identity cards scheme. For example, the power in Clause 19(3)(c) may be used to authorise the provision of information to the police for the purposes of identifying victims of accidents, terrorist incidents or disaster. Regrettably, we all know how necessary that has proven to be on occasion, when one has not been able to identify the person in any other way. The power to provide information to government departments under Clause 19(5) may be used to provide information—for example, to the Department for Work and Pensions for benefits entitlement purposes.
	We do not accept that the public interest definition is too far-reaching, because it includes,
	"the efficient and effective provision of public services".
	Providing information to help a public authority to tackle housing benefit fraud, for example, or to identify someone attempting to access services to which they are not entitled surely goes to the heart of the benefits of the scheme. Such information should be available without consent.
	I hope that the Committee will accept that the information held on the national identity register is held in confidence and, as I hope that I have made clear in all our debates, there will be no open access to the register. I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was able to remind us of that fact earlier in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. No one will be able to simply browse through the entries on the register. As I have said, regulations under Clause 23 would govern how any request for information would be handled, by whom it could be made and by whom it would need to be authorised. The order-making powers to prescribe additional purposes for which information may be provided to the police, the Revenue and government departments are subject to the public interest test in subsection (7) and to the scrutiny of Parliament.
	I shall answer the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell. Of course regulations under Clause 23(5) may allow information to be provided to an officer of a lower rank than the chief constable of the police. The regulations will make different provisions depending on the nature of the information, and a higher rank will be needed for paragraph 9 information. We think that proper.
	Following the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I have indicated that I am willing to look again at the powers and make them subject to the affirmative rather than the negative resolution procedure. I will return to the matter on Report. I agree with Members of the Committee who say that that would be an appropriate level of scrutiny.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I do not want to prolong what is already a rather long speech, if I may say so, but I would like to put on record the doubt that I have that no one will be able to browse through the register. This is exactly what I suspected all along. The Government's record over leaking is not immaculate. I believe that there will be much wider access to that register by people who have no right to know the contents, and the Government will be powerless to prevent that happening.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I understand the noble Lord's anxiety, but it is not justified in this case. We rely on the efficacy, integrity and efficiency that has been demonstrated—not hoped for, but demonstrated—by the Passport Office. If I may respectfully say so, he has been around long enough to know that that was not always the case in relation to the Passport Office. We had real challenges to get the system right and the technology working properly, but we have a sound organisation with an excellent record of delivery and security that has not yet let us down.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I do not want to prolong things at all. However, the noble Baroness is right—I have been around for ages and ages and then some more. I have learnt from those ages that the efficacy of new arrangements is often spoilt by a high population of bugs, which have to be worked out and disinfected in years. The idea that a new organisation will be immaculate from the start is very far-fetched.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to all Members of the Committee who have contributed to the discussion on this group of amendments, and to the noble Baroness for her speech. The fact that it was long was entirely right; the issues that she dealt with were important, and the explanation was extremely useful. None the less, I have to share the scepticism of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton. The scale of the operation is unprecedented. The passport office has built up over 50 years, but we are in a wholly different measure of enterprise. I assure the noble Baroness that, once you get biometric information on to the passport and put fingerprints on there as well, the security will be found wanting, as I am afraid that it is on the police records on citizen criminality, for example. They are supposed to be foolproof, but are notoriously permeable.
	It is worth mentioning that the noble Baroness clung with a touching desperation to the support rendered her by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. He is the first speaker in the past three and a half hours who has supported the Government on any amendment, which says a little.

The Earl of Erroll: I did so only to a limited extent, in that I would like the phrase qualified, as would the noble Lord. I would just increase his qualification to include crimes against the person.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Absolutely, but I am sure that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, are mindful of the one-way traffic concerning some of the issues.
	I concede what the Minister said about Amendment No. 209. She made her case on that and I am happy not to move that amendment. But while at first, and perhaps second, sight some of the examples that she gave would lead me and others to think that this difficult line should be drawn a bit this way or a bit that way, I do not believe—she may agree—that one should haul into this whole regime any crime. For example, making the subject of a careless driving prosecution open to the investigatory powers given under the Bill would be wholly disproportionate and wholly outside the basis on which the project was brought forward.
	So I must think about this matter before Report and come back with something that strikes a balance and takes account of the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. I accept that if there are certain offences against the person which are not, none the less, caught by the serious crimes definition, as there are, then one should deal with that. But two of the examples given by the noble Baroness to justify her position would be covered by "serious crime". One must think coolly about this matter but, on the basis of what has been said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 202:
	Page 17, line 28, leave out paragraph (c).

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: This amendment stands in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Seccombe and Lord Crickhowell and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 204, 205 and 208, which stand in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Seccombe and Lord Crickhowell.
	This group of amendments develops further the theme of our concerns about the audit trail. As we have seen, Clause 19 gives the Secretary of State the power to provide information held on the register to public authorities and others without the consent of the person whose information is being divulged. Amendment No. 202 would restrict the power of the Secretary of State by denying him the opportunity to specify in an order additional purposes for which public authorities and others could have information provided to them. It would simply delete subsection (3)(c), which is an open-ended power for the Secretary of State to add by order to his power to reveal information. It has been tabled to ask the Government to justify such a wide power.
	Amendment No. 204 would remove subsection (4)(f). This is another instance of the Secretary of State being given a wide power to exercise by order. It appears that paragraphs (a) to (e) already give a comprehensive list of purposes. Why, then, do the Government require paragraph (f), which means that they can extend the list ad nauseam? What else do they anticipate they will need to add in the future?
	Amendment No. 205 would remove subsection (5), which gives the Secretary of State an even wider power—if there could be such. It enables him to prescribe any government department or any Northern Ireland department and any of their functions, thereby making lawful the provision of information without consent to that department in the exercise of that function. The power can be used to make information on the register freely available within government for legitimate government purposes. Subsection (5) is yet another example of this House being asked to give the Government powers to do things that they have not yet specified or cannot yet specify.
	Amendment No. 208 would remove subsection (6), which sets out for what purposes information may be provided without consent to a designated documents authority that issues documents designated under Clause 4. We expressed our concerns in that regard during the debate on whether Clause 4 should stand part, led by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. Passports are to be designated documents as a result of this Bill. The Government have said that driving licences may well become designated documents but, as to the rest, there is only conjecture. Yet again, we are being asked to leave the Government with wide-ranging powers.
	I make it clear that this is a significant issue for me. The amendments that I have tabled today are very much probing in nature because I think I should listen carefully to the noble Baroness's response before I consider what amendments I may need to bring back on Report. I beg to move.

Lord Crickhowell: I missed the opening exchanges on the previous set of amendments but this set is closely connected with it. I thought that the Minister made some rather telling points on the issue of serious crime. Clearly, after three consecutive days, she is in good form, and I hope that she can maintain her high standards to the very end. But she also made one or two comments that made me think.
	When she talked about the need for the commissioners of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to be able to take timely and collective action, for a moment I wished that it worked the other way round as well. I submitted my humble tax return in August. Since then, I have repeatedly written and telephoned asking for a simple response on a matter that would enable me to make my final modest tax contribution before the deadline on 31 January, but reply so far there has not come. I shall send the exchange that we have just had to my tax inspector and suggest that he should act as promptly and effectively as the Minister suggests others should do in assisting the commissioners in their task.
	The noble Baroness said that she was confident that all information was held in confidence, and she cited the record of the Passport Office. But we are not dealing with the same tasks as those of the Passport Office. The information on the register and the information to be made available under these clauses are of a quite different order from those available to the Passport Office.
	The phrase "held in confidence" takes on a new meaning when that confidence extends to an ability to have access to information,
	"for other purposes specified by order made by the Secretary of State",
	when that extends to information being provided to all government departments in connection with the carrying out of any prescribed functions of the department or of a Minister in charge of it. Subsection (6) states:
	"The provision of information to a designated documents authority is authorised by this section where the information is provided for purposes connected with the exercise or performance by the authority of . . . any of its powers or duties by virtue of this Act; or . . . any of its other powers or duties in relation to the issue or modification of designated documents".
	Those are extraordinarily wide definitions. They give remarkable scope. In effect, they give scope for all this information to be provided to any government departments to be used in any way they like. I was trying to think why, in my days as Secretary of State for Wales, I might have required this information. But whether or not I would have desired it, I would have been slightly horrified if any of my officials could have had access to it simply by saying that it was necessary for the carrying out of their functions in the department. Nor would I have had quite the confidence of the Minister on the Front Bench that all that information would necessarily remain completely confidential. I think that I am probably right in saying that a designated documents authority includes the National Assembly for Wales. I seem to recall that in the past we had a significant case when confidential information given to the National Assembly for Wales became public. I certainly do not have complete confidence in such confidentiality.
	If we are to go this far, we must have a very clear explanation of why the whole measure has to be drafted in such wide terms. Surely there should be some constraints. Is it not possible that we are opening up all the access provisions in such a way that there will be no real limitations at all? If the Government think that that is necessary, they have to justify their case rather more eloquently than they have done so far to Parliament. Of course I shall listen, as I always do, most carefully to the noble Baroness. As I usually have to when the arguments are so detailed and persuasive, I shall read them in great detail afterwards before I decide whether to pursue these issues later, like my noble friend. We are entitled to a very full and adequate explanation of why the Bill is drafted so widely.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: I support what my noble friend has just said and I support what my noble friend Lady Anelay said in moving the amendment. When reading these points in the Bill, one wonders why anything else is put in except that,
	"The Secretary of State may, without the individual's consent, provide a person with information recorded in an individual's entry in the Register",
	for any purpose specified by order made by the Secretary of State. All the other words are otiose; they are not necessary; they are simply courteous examples of what the Bill might be used for. A Bill that makes very significant inroads into the privacy of individuals and our right to lead our lives without being trapped from birth to death in any significant move that we make, requires proper explanation. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell is right to draw attention to Clause 4, which deals with designated documents. I looked at it to remind myself of what documents could be designated. It states:
	"The Secretary of State may by order designate a description of documents for the purposes of this Act".
	The clause sounds very restrictive, as it says,
	"The only documents that may be the subject of an order",
	are those that a person has a power or duty to issue. I shall not read the whole of the clause as that is unnecessary. Any document issued by any government department for any purpose whatever may be designated. Then all the powers of sharing information under Clause 9 may be shared with anyone who has anything to do with it. In consequence, there is absolutely no limitation whatever on the purposes for which the national register may be used in any of the major functions and the most detailed interstices of government. I am certain that that is exactly what the Government intend. I am sure that the instructions to parliamentary draftsmen must have made it clear that the Secretary of State must be able to provide information to anyone in any part of government for any purpose whatever. If the noble Baroness believes I have got it wrong she will no doubt explain why.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I think the noble Lord has got it wrong. I shall explain why. I apologise for the length of my reply, but to answer the questions raised by noble Lords, I feel that I am obliged to speak at length. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and others have been kind enough to indicate that that may enable her not to pursue the amendments on Report.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I apologise to the Minister for my lateness. I had overlooked the fact that I have two amendments in this group, Amendments Nos. 206 and 207. I can speak to them in two sentences. The noble Baroness has already indicated that she is minded to have an affirmative order-making power under Clause 19(5). My two amendments are to that effect.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: No apology is necessary, not least because the noble Lord spoke to his amendments so expeditiously. All the amendments narrow the grounds on which information can be provided without consent, on a basis very similar to those advanced under the previous group of amendments. I had hoped that I had been able to persuade noble Lords, although I understand that I may not have, that the national identity register will be held in confidence and will not be open to access.
	Much has been said about it being a new agency. Of course it will be, but it will be predicated on the foundations of the agency that we already have. It will cover much of the information that we already hold securely in relation to the 80 per cent of the people in our country who currently have a passport. I need to reassure noble Lords that we are not talking about totally different information. That information, albeit held through passports, is currently accessed from time to time in a way that is proper. The change will add biometric data to the register, but the fundamental information held in relation to many people will not be very different.
	It is right and proper that information held on the register should be provided to the police and the security services when required for purposes spelt out in Clause 19. Clause 202 would remove the ability to specify in an order any additional purposes. I hope that noble Lords recognise that the police undertake work that falls outside the definitions of the detection of crime or in the interests of national security. For example, there could be circumstances when there is a wider service to the public that would require the police to be able to verify information from the national identity register. The power could be used, for example, to identify a body after an accident where there is no other means of identification or to help trace a missing, vulnerable person who may be in danger because of a medical condition. These situations may be considered good enough reasons to allow information to be provided from the register without consent. Earlier, I mentioned the tragic circumstances on 7 July. We had to identify people. If those people could not be identified in any other way, being able to use the data for that reason would be a mercy to family and friends, who would be desperate for identification.
	Amendment No. 204 would prevent the provision of information to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for other purposes specified by order, and limit it to those specified in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (4). Subsection (4) of Clause 19 was drafted in a detailed fashion to ensure that all the relevant functions of the new HMRC were covered. Subsection (4)(f) is still required to give the flexibility to allow the circumstances listed to be extended in line with additional work which might be allocated to this still new department. Remember, we are not talking of wholesale access to information; we are talking about basic identity details being provided. The rules under Clause 23 will allow, as I have already reminded the Committee, detailed rules to be laid down in the secondary legislation about how any such request for information to be provided to HMRC will be handled.
	Amendment No. 205 would prevent regulations being made that would permit a government department, including a Northern Ireland government department, to be provided with information for the purposes specified in that order. The provision of identity information from the register to other government departments is a vital part of the identity card scheme and will enable many of the benefits to be realised. It is worth remembering that this subsection does not authorise the provision of information within paragraph 9 of Schedule 1.
	We envisage these regulations being used, for example, to make provision for the Department for Work and Pensions to receive information connected to its functions in investigating benefit fraud. It could also be used to make provision for information to be provided to the Department for Constitutional Affairs for the enforcement of fines. We have spoken often in this House about the problems of enforcement. Usually, the two things one needs for enforcement are correct name and address. They make all the difference.
	The order-making powers in Clause 19 are strictly limited. Any order or regulation would need to specify the public functions for which any information could be provided from the register, and subsection (7) provides that the powers can only be used to authorise provision of information where it is necessary in the public interest. Any statutory instruments made under these powers will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. I am therefore pleased to respond to Amendments Nos. 206 and 207, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, which seek to make the Secretary of State's powers to prescribe the functions of another government department or Northern Ireland department that would warrant provision of information subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
	The amendments mirror a recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its recent report. As I have said before, we have looked at that report and are inclined to agree with its recommendation in this respect. With noble Lords' consent, I shall return to this matter after further thought on Report.
	Amendment No. 208 would remove the ability to provide information to a designated documents authority without consent. The provision in Clause 19(6) is included for good reason. In the future we may designate a different category of document that would not be issued by the new agency or come under the responsibility of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, or any of his successors—for example, a driving licence issued by DVLA or Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland. This power would ensure that the agency was able to have the same information provided to it, and that all ID cards would be issued in a uniform manner.
	I hope that I have explained fully why the measures we seek are proportionate and necessary, and meet the needs of the circumstances. I therefore invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Lord Crickhowell: Before my noble friend withdraws her amendment, the Minister effectively said that I had got it wrong and then gave a very interesting speech, but never actually explained why I had got it wrong. It seemed to me that I had got it absolutely right, and that the powers available to the Secretary of State would be almost unlimited. I am not suggesting that they will all be used in a wicked way. None the less, they are unlimited and will be available to future governments.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: They really are not unlimited. I have, with the greatest respect to the noble and learned Lord, gone through the whole process: what the limitations are; how they will be enforced; how they will be regulated; and the affirmative resolution procedure. I can say, I hope without contradiction, that all those things are limitations. They are not unlimited. They are an opportunity for the scrutiny and implementation to be consistent with what is proper. That is why I say to the noble and learned Lord that I disagree with him.

Lord Lucas: Do I understand things correctly? A commercial organisation, in querying the register, will present certain information to the register—the identity card and maybe a biometric. The question will be, "Do these two things go together? Is this a valid person?". The answer will come back "Yes" or "No". So there is no extraction of data from the register for commercial purposes.
	Essentially we are offering government departments a facility to come along with a piece of information—it may be a credit card, or a face biometric taken by a high resolution camera in the street—ask "Who is this?" and have the answer come back "It is him". We are enabling government departments to identify people in all sorts of different circumstances, for all sorts of good reasons. I entirely accept that there will be lots of good reasons why we should give government departments this power.
	None the less, is it a correct understanding that a government department will present some piece of information to the register, which will be recorded in there for one reason or another, and back will come a set of data enabling it to identify the individual concerned and gain a more complete picture of their activities? One should not underestimate the width of that power. But am I right in understanding that, subject to the safeguards, each little bit has to be agreed by affirmative resolution—which we will do in due course, because everything will be for good reason—and that is the way we see the future?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We see a future in which reasons will be proper, specified, proportionate, relevant and necessary. If we look at those issues and we have a tight framework, identification will be permitted. Identification is the only thing we are talking about. People should be able to know whether an individual is the individual who is entitled to various things or who is subject to scrutiny for other reasons.
	I will not repeat the long catalogue I have gone through in the past hour. I hope it has been fairly comprehensive. With all those caveats, people will be able to verify and authenticate the identity of individuals for proper purposes and proportionate reasons.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on this group of amendments, which probe further the way in which the audit trail will be operated, and the powers we are giving to the Secretary of State through this clause. I am grateful to the Minister for taking the time to look at the impact of each amendment individually.
	I immediately see the force of the Minister's argument on Amendment No. 202, with the identification of victims of crime. We in this House agreed earlier this year with the Government's proposals to ensure that DNA could be used—for example, in identifying those who tragically lost their lives in the tsunami. That is not a new argument, and one we accept wholeheartedly. The difficulty is that one has to balance, on one side, the Government's requirement to be flexible in being able to later add further powers, as against an understanding of what may be appropriate and acceptable—as the Minister says—for the Government so to do.
	I certainly welcome the fact that the Government—as the Minister said earlier, to a group of my amendments—are prepared to accept the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to ensure that the orders within this clause will be by affirmative resolution. I certainly hope that that would mean that the Government could be held to account.
	I will have to look carefully at the Minister's answer, however, because I still feel that, on Amendment No. 208, we are leaving open a very wide gate for the Government to drive through changes. Having read her arguments and spoken to her further between now and Report stage, I may be satisfied. However, these are probing amendments, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 203 to 205 not moved.]

Lord Lucas: moved Amendment No. 205A:
	Page 17, line 46, at end insert—
	"( ) to the National Identity Scheme Commissioner,"

Lord Lucas: I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I know it was foolish of me, but I thought the noble Lord might want to give some reason why he thought that this was an appropriate amendment. Of course, it is an unreasoned amendment and, therefore, maybe I should say that it is unnecessary and the clause is sound.

Lord Lucas: I was hoping to save time but, if the Minister needs an explanation, I ask her what access the Government envisage that the national identity scheme commissioner will have to information on the register.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The noble Lord's amendment would authorise the provision of information not falling within paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 to the identity scheme commissioner. As I have just indicated, this amendment is unnecessary because the provision of information to the national identity scheme commissioner is already included within the Bill.
	Clause 24(4) places a duty on the Secretary of State's officials to provide information to the commissioner that he may require for the carrying out of his functions. The Bill makes it clear that the duty to provide information includes information held on the register. The commissioner's functions include review of all the Secretary of State's functions under the scheme including making entries, maintaining the register and the provision of information from it. Noble Lords can see that the widest possible access has been given to the commissioner. That is why I was a bit perplexed. I would have thought that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, bearing in mind the amendments that he has tabled before, would be delighted with the breadth and ambit of the authority that is to be given to the commissioner in this regard.

Lord Lucas: I am grateful for that. I had not understood the width of the provision in Clause 24. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 206 to 209 not moved.]

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 210:
	Page 18, line 26, leave out paragraphs (g) to (i).

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Amendment No. 210 is a probing amendment to ascertain what justification there is for allowing the police forces of the three islands—Man, Jersey and Guernsey—to be on the same footing as our own police forces. We are giving enormous powers under these provisions and Clause 19 as great as most. So I look forward to a justification.
	One has to say of the islands of Jersey, Guernsey and Man that they are notorious as resorts for tax exiles. I wonder whether this arrangement is going to be reciprocal. If there was a reciprocity of information, I might be attracted to their inclusion. I look forward to the Minister's response. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I had better be careful what I say on the question of reciprocity. I know that the noble Lord has a particular view about the islands. The case is that, as we know, organised crime and terrorism have no national boundaries. We think that we have rightly made provision for the police forces of the United Kingdom to request information without the consent of the individual in the context of national security and for the prevention or detection of crime.
	We believe that it is an entirely reasonable step to include the police forces of the islands, which we have done at their request, in order to safeguard the public of all the jurisdictions. The nearness of the islands and the ease of travel between them and the United Kingdom mean that criminals as well as legitimate tourists and other travellers can carry out their activities across the jurisdictions. It seems to us to be perfectly proper for this legislation to allow explicitly for the provision of information to the islands' police, who quite rightly work very closely indeed with United Kingdom police forces. For example, they can already be provided with fingerprint and DNA information under Section 63A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Such arrangements recognise the special position of the Crown dependencies in relation to the United Kingdom.
	We ought not to overlook the fact that we are talking about the provision of identity information from the register, including name, address, date of birth, photograph, biometrics and so on, to help the police with their investigations. The register is not an amalgam of every bit of information held on every government database and Clause 19 does not allow paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 information—that is, the audit trail—to be provided to the insular police forces unless the serious crime test is met under Clause 20(4).
	Thinking back to when I had some responsibility for relations with the insular authorities, knowing how their police forces—which are modelled very closely on our own—work, and knowing as the noble Lord and I both do that there is a feeling and a sense that offshore activities of a financial and sometimes dubious nature take place relating to those three particular insular authorities, I think that this is an extremely sensible move. Given that their own authorities have requested this, we should welcome it for proper and effective law enforcement relationships.
	As to the noble Lord's throwaway comment on reciprocity, the case does not arise as the islands do not as yet have an identity card scheme or an identity register, although that is something for them to consider in the future. No doubt, when they see the success of our scheme they will probably wish to go further along that path. Having heard of the value of the provision to law enforcement for the detection of serious crime and fraud, I think that it is probably extremely useful that they have requested this of us.

Lord Lucas: Does that mean that the residents of these islands will be able to move unchecked throughout the United Kingdom when we have a compulsory register? They will become a species of super-criminal who can do anything, untouched and identified, who still have complete rights of access to the United Kingdom.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: No, of course it does not mean that. The noble Lord is being just a touch facetious.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I will support the noble Lord and not be at all facetious. One has to face the reality that the islands of Guernsey and Jersey in particular are notorious as resorts for chicanery. I do not for a second accuse the vast majority of the worthy folk of that—indeed, my grandmother was a Jersey woman.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: It has not made me rich. Quite seriously, however, it is a real hole in the UK tax bucket. I know from my professional experience that there is a great deal of activity that would not withstand the scrutiny of light. It makes me think that the issue of reciprocity is not a throwaway matter at all. I understand the point that they do not have an identity card scheme, but they have passports. If, as the noble Baroness has constantly pressed upon us, the passport system is the rock to which this modest edifice is to be added, then surely we should at least get some reciprocity on those lines. I should imagine that the Inland Revenue, not to mention the serious crimes office, might well occasionally get great benefit from the factual footprint that is available on a passport.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord makes a perfectly fine and valid point. As for ID cards, the islands have their own jurisdiction. But there is a provision in Clause 45(6)—it is a standard formulation—that would allow the provisions of the ID card legislation to be extended in future to the Channel Islands or to the Isle of Man through an Order in Council at the request of the insular authorities. We have no plans to progress that at the moment, but I suspect that given the close working relationships between the policing authorities and agencies in the insular authorities and the United Kingdom, that may be important in the future.
	I return, finally, to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. If island residents are here for a period longer than three months, they would become subject to the identity card regime. We would expect them to seek to register and be furnished with an ID card.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 19 agreed to.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I beg to move that the House be resumed. In moving this Motion, may I suggest that the Committee stage begin again not before 8.30 pm? I am tempted to say 8.35 pm, but I do not think that I can.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.

Safety of Sports Grounds (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

Lord Rooker: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 21 November be approved.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the main purpose of the draft order is to introduce a safety certification scheme for sports grounds in Northern Ireland. It will improve the safety of spectators at sports grounds. In Northern Ireland, unlike in Great Britain, there are no arrangements requiring owners, occupiers or managers of outdoor sports grounds actively to consider the safety of spectators. District councils and the Health and Safety Agency for Northern Ireland have found it difficult to enforce existing legislation on spectator safety as it primarily relates to employers and/or employees. One of the difficulties they have sometimes encountered has been the identification of the employer.
	Many noble Lords will be aware that, in Great Britain, existing legislation such as the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport Act 1987, which followed the disastrous Bradford fire, were acted upon and enforced by local authorities under the leadership and guidance of the Football Licensing Authority, which was established by the Football Spectators Act 1989. However, Northern Ireland was not included in that legislation. Today, by bringing the draft order before the House, we will be introducing new safety standards for spectators at all sports grounds, not just Association Football, and bringing Northern Ireland into line with legislation already on the statute book for the rest of Great Britain.
	The aim of the legislation is to introduce a safety certification scheme for grounds with a capacity of more than 5,000 spectators and for spectator stands with a capacity of more than 500. It is estimated that about 26 sports grounds and 15 spectator stands will require certificates. I delineate between the two. For example, race courses and the motor racing circuit would not of themselves as a ground be liable for certification, because they are vast wide-open spaces. However, a spectator stand of more than 500 would be covered.
	The order, if approved, will give district councils the authority to issue safety certificates, enforce the terms and conditions of those certificates and ensure that owners, occupiers or managers are responsible for the safety of their organisation. An overseeing body will be established to provide advice and guidance. Consultation on the draft order confirmed general support for these proposals, including support from district councils.
	Subject to the order being approved by the House, it will go to the Privy Council early next year. It will come into force 12 months after it is approved, but some of the provisions will come into force straight away, one of which is the ability of local authorities to issue a prohibition notice on what they would consider unsafe grounds. There is a year to get the house in order, but if there is something really serious the local authorities will get that order straight away on the grounds of public safety.
	So I commend the order to your Lordships' House as an opportunity to improve the safety of spectators while visiting the many sports grounds throughout Northern Ireland. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 21 November be approved.—(Lord Rooker.)

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, we support this measure.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this order to the House. From these Benches we welcome it, although it comes very late to Northern Ireland. Safety is an incredibly important issue and we are very pleased that the Government are bringing Northern Ireland's sports grounds into the safety certification scheme which exists here. I well remember that legislation being formulated in England and Wales and spending many happy hours at, I think, York City's ground and at Scarborough's, making sure that they were going to comply with those certifications.
	The safety of spectators at sporting events should be of fundamental concern to all of us. We want to be sure that when people get very excited at a sporting event, our safety and that of our children is guaranteed. In that respect, I have a couple of short questions for the Minister. He has already answered one of them and I am grateful to him for that. The question was how many stadiums in Northern Ireland have a capacity for over 5,000 people. I thank him for giving me the figure.
	The order actually states:
	"A safety certificate shall contain such terms and conditions as the council considers necessary or expedient to secure reasonable safety at the sports ground".
	I am a little concerned about the word "reasonable". Are the Government happy that reasonable is sufficient to ensure proper safety?
	Is this legislation identical to that in other parts of England and Wales? Look as I might in the order, I could not find a regulatory impact assessment on the financial aspects. Can the noble Lord help by talking a little about the financial side and how this will be incorporated? Otherwise, we support the order.

Lord Laird: My Lords, I thank the Minister for outlining the order. The group with which I am identified supports it. I offer congratulations to everybody who has been involved in putting this together. It is long overdue, but something that is long overdue is still very welcome.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am very grateful for the obviously widespread support that the order has received. I fully accept that it is long overdue and that it is better late than never. It is fortunate that there has not been a major tragedy in Northern Ireland. The order has been consulted on.
	On the noble Baroness's questions, the term "reasonable" is included throughout our legislation. It would be wrong for a district council to impose an unreasonable requirement on a sports ground because it would have grounds for complaining about it if it was thought to be unreasonable. There would be an appeals system. All reasonable precautions should be taken. Some people may be required to do some work as a result of this. We all know what the reasonable precautions will be: crash barriers, entrances and so on, and perhaps the formulation of the stands. But it will be wholly reasonable. They will not be asked to do anything in Northern Ireland that people in Great Britain have not been asked to do.
	That brings me to the second part of the noble Baroness's question. The provision is not identical because it suits Northern Ireland, but, for all practical purposes, it brings Northern Ireland legislation into line with what exists now in Great Britain. A regulatory impact assessment has been carried out. The Government have estimated that it will cost about £30 million over the next 10 years to bring the major sports grounds in Northern Ireland into line with the proposed new order. A start has been made. Already £9 million is being provided over the next three years to assist the sports council implement a new stadia safety programme.
	The main objective of the Sports Council scheme is to address the long-term spectator safety deficiencies at major grounds. The grounds in Northern Ireland vary enormously in size. There are not many of the very large ones. The stadia safety scheme is a strategic programme and encourages sports to adopt a strategic approach to improving the safety at grounds.
	I know that this was not covered by the regulatory impact assessment, but turning to the Explanatory Memorandum at Paragraph 11, it has been difficult to quantify the costs, but the department estimates the following. The cost to individual clubs will be £1,150; the cost to a district council for a safety certificate will be £200,000 to £362,000 and the cost to the department for running it £90,000 per annum, overheads not included. There will be a charge for these certificates in due course. That will be enunciated by the department.
	I have a more specific answer. Is this identical to legislation in the UK? The answer is yes. For all practical purposes, I said the same.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2005

Lord Bach: rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 24 November be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee and 17th Report from the Merits Committee].

Lord Bach: My Lords, the regulations set business recovery and recycling targets for packaging waste for the years 2006–10. The targets for 2008 are intended to enable the UK to meet its obligations under the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste by the end of that year.
	The regulations consolidate the original 1997 instrument and subsequent amendments with a view to making the regulations more easily understood and accessible. The regulations also incorporate other changes designed to increase the amount of packaging subject to obligations. The regulations also contain provisions to reduce the burden on smaller businesses by giving them the option of having their recycling obligation allocated to them, rather than having to collate data, complete a data form and calculate their own recovery and recycling obligations. It is anticipated that this allocation option will reduce the administrative burden on, and the costs to, smaller businesses. Subject to your Lordships' approval the regulations are intended to come into effect on 1 January, 2006.
	Since these producer responsibility regulations came into force in 1997, the UK's packaging waste recovery rate has increased by 25 percentage points from 30 per cent to 55 per cent of the total UK packaging waste stream by the end of 2004. Recycling has risen to 50 per cent from about 27 per cent in 1997.
	The businesses concerned in making that happen are to be congratulated. However, recycling of packaging waste must increase further if we are to meet directive targets in 2008. We are often asked why we focus on increasing packaging waste recycling. Increased recycling is beneficial from the broader resource efficiency perspective and is a contributory factor in our efforts to tackle climate change. Your Lordships will not be immune to the spread of the use of drinks cans, which now seem to be an essential part of life. The House may be interested to know that manufacturing aluminium cans from recycled material takes only 5 per cent of the energy needed to manufacture them from the raw material. That provides a strong incentive to recycle cans and is just one example.
	About half of the 10 million tonnes of packaging waste arises in the household stream. One of the main challenges now is to ensure sufficient collection of lightweight, non-biodegradable packaging items such as cans—aluminium and steel—and plastic containers from households. That will require co-operative working between business and local authorities, but the more that that occurs and increases collection of packaging waste for recycling, the greater are the chances of the UK meeting the challenging 2008 packaging targets.
	The regulations require businesses of a certain size that use packaging to ensure that target levels of recovery and recycling of packaging waste are met each year. The more businesses and the more packaging that is within the scope of the regulations, the more that we can keep targets at a reasonable level. This is why the 2005 regulations before your Lordships place obligations on businesses that lease out packaging—such as palletes—and on those with franchise and similar licensed business arrangements including pub-operating companies.
	Before finalising the proposals, the Government undertook two major consultation exercises to seek views. The industry view has been very ably represented to the Government by the Advisory Committee on Packaging.
	In conclusion, the existing regulations have shown how effective producer responsibility schemes can be in implementing recovery and recycling targets at least cost to business and the 2005 regulations before the House will continue that trend. We also believe that the targets that we propose for 2006–2010, together with the other changes to the system, will enable the us to meet the next directive targets in 2008 in an efficient and cost-effective way. Finally, we believe that the resulting increases in packaging waste recovery and recycling will make an important contribution to the achievement of our own waste strategies and the sustainable development of our economy.
	I commend the regulations to your Lordships. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 24 November be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee and 17th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Lord Bach.)

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I regret that I cannot be as commendably brief as my noble friend when speaking to the previous order. I have one or two questions. The first I find fascinating but it must be asked. The regulations state that they:
	"shall come into force on the day after the day on which they are made".
	The problem that I have is that there is no date, even on the authorised version officially printed. So the first question for the Minister must be: on what date will the regulations come into effect? I am sure that he has the answer at his fingertips.
	The Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments has given the order a clean bill of health, which is good. Indeed, the comprehensive disclosure of information has been, in my view, quite amazing. Disregarding the 48 pages of regulations, which include five pages of interpretation and notices, there were 177 pages in the Explanatory Memorandum and regulatory impact assessment. We then had a further 28 pages of consultation analysis, some of which, I fear, was slightly devalued because it included some consultees admitting that they did not have expertise to comment on specifics or were not familiar enough with that area of business to provide in-depth comments. That is the reality of life.
	The Minister mentioned the problems at the retail end. Through the manufacturing and distribution process, it is relatively easily done, although it takes some concentrated work to deal with the packaging stream and, where it becomes redundant, to ensure that it is properly disposed of. At the retail end, it becomes a problem, although we are all familiar with bottle banks, can banks, plastic bottle banks, and so on and so forth. Most supermarkets have them in their car parks and they are dotted around the countryside. However, the fact is that still far too high a proportion of domestic waste is going to landfill. There is a great deal of work to be done in the area.
	I noted with pleasure that recovery of waste includes incineration and energy recovery. That is very worthwhile. However, I have a slight hesitation about energy recovery. If that means electricity production, that is one thing, but, as I have mentioned once before in the House, the south-east London combined heat and power installation was specifically designed to dispose of waste in the middle of a residential area and to provide electricity to the grid. It was supposed to provide heating to the houses in the vicinity. After 10 years or more of operation, it has not warmed one house. Although, in a sense, that is not relevant to these regulations, I assume that installations such as the south-east London combined heat and power installation will have the power to issue packaging waste recovery notes. Society at large is not recovering much of the energy that could be recovered. For some reason, it was never agreed how the heat would be distributed. I admit that that is a much wider issue than lies behind these regulations, but I would be most grateful for the noble Lord's help on it.
	Finally, is the audit trail sufficiently robust and comprehensive to keep up with what is going on to ensure that records are properly kept and that what everyone says is happening is happening on the ground? It would be interesting to know whether this order requires an increase in resources to achieve that and, if possible, what it is. Without a proper audit trail, the system could break down. I hope that it will not. We support the orders, but I hope that the noble Lord will be able to help on my questions.

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, these Benches welcome any effort to deal with the difficult problem of packaging. Obviously, we are all aware that packaging has not reduced in recent years. I am very pleased to hear the Minister's statistics on recycling, which is an achievement. However, although we are recycling more, we should not become complacent. The hierarchy should be to reduce and then to recycle if packaging is reduced to the absolute minimum. I believe that the Minister in another place mentioned that these regulations would also have the effect of reducing the amount of packaging, but it was not clear how that would be done. Can the Minister explain that?
	The regulations refer on page 7 to recycling a whole list of materials. I was intrigued that the regulatory impact assessment chose to look at the fast food business as an example. The fast food business would have an opportunity to use one of the really new technologies; that is, to use containers made from plant starch, which would be the waste from another process—for example, potato packs which are made from potato peelings of potatoes used for food, and maize stems and leaves from maize that is grown for cattle feed. Both these waste products can be made into containers for packaging. Waste to packaging to compost seems to be a far more virtuous circle than using a prime product such as aluminium or whatever. There should be a little more effort put into creating a truly virtuous circle by using waste products in a more productive way.
	I would also like to ask what constitutes packaging for supermarket displays. I am sure that the Minister will have noticed that there are things that do not package the goods. I believe that they are referred to in the trade as shelf stackers, which make yoghurts, for example, sit up in stacks so that people can see them. They are for display purposes, but are they necessary and do they fall within the parameters of this regulation? They certainly should. They are not strictly speaking packaging. They are display material, the use of which has grown in recent years.
	Finally, packaging that is made of mixed materials is incredibly difficult to recycle, although I believe that there is a plant that can do it. What do these regulations do to discourage producers of packaging material from manufacturing things that are so hard to recycle? A very good example would be where perhaps two materials are necessary. To choose the yoghurt pot again, the firm Yeo Valley has chosen to use a very thin plastic to contain its yoghurt, but its display material is a cardboard wraparound on the outside. The two wrappers can be extremely easily separated for recycling purposes. Plastics should be labelled with their type of plastic. Through the summer, I collected all the containers that soft fruit, such as peaches, nectarines and strawberries, came in until I had a huge stack of them. My local authority said, "Well, they are not recyclable because they are the wrong sort of plastic". It is very hard for anyone to know the right and wrong types of plastic. I hope that manufacturers of packaging materials will get a lot better at helping, in this case, retailers, and consumers, by doing their bit to make much more obvious which sorts of material go where.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their comments. They are both obviously experts in this field. I was very impressed by the noble Lord's exact knowledge of these not-short regulations. He asked about the date on which they would come into force, which, as he said, would be the day after these regulations are made. That will be the day after the conclusion of debates in both Houses. If these regulations are fortunate enough to be agreed today, that will mean, tomorrow.
	The noble Lord asked about problems at the retail end. Retailers have the largest share of obligation under the regulations—some 48 per cent—and have played a full part in increasing packaging waste recovery and recycling so far, which is up by some 25 percentage points since 1998. There will be higher costs—an extra £19 million spread over the next three years—compared with the costs that were estimated in 2003. It has been necessary to amend the targets to ensure that we will achieve the next directive targets. In the great scheme of things, £19 million is not a huge extra cost, but it is an extra cost.
	The noble Baroness referred to reducing packaging. Obligations based on packaging are handled by the business. Therefore, if it reduces the amount of packaging it handles, the costs of compliance will be lower. So if it gets less packaging in, its costs will be less, which is, no doubt, part of the virtuous cycle that the noble Baroness referred to. She also talked about potato and maize starches. She is right that they can be used to make packaging, but biodegradable is really beneficial only if it is sent for biodegrading itself, otherwise, it goes straight into household waste. The noble Baroness also referred to the audit trail. Importantly, the Environment Agency monitors and enforces these regulations, so we are comfortable that there is a proper audit trail for these matters.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do adjourn during pleasure until 8.30 pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	[The Sitting was suspended from 7.59 to 8.30 pm.]

Identity Cards Bill

House again in Committee.
	Clause 20 [Prevention and detection of crime]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 210ZA:
	Page 18, line 35, leave out "person" and insert "public authority"

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: This group comprises eight amendments, all tabled in my name. I propose to advance only Amendments Nos. 210ZA, 211 and 213A. The matters dealt with under Amendments Nos. 210A and 210B were thoroughly canvassed in earlier amendments, so there is little or no point in repeating the arguments for and against those matters.
	I draw the attention of noble Lords to the fact that Clause 20 covers the prevention and detection of crime and is another in this important series of clauses, Clauses 19 to 22. It is the only one which does not deal with public authorities alone. As drafted it entitles the Secretary of State, without the individual's consent, to provide a person, in this case not confined to public authorities, with information on that individual recorded in his entry in the register. It is fair to say that the clause received scant attention in the other place, although I believe I am right in saying that the issue of who the Secretary of State could authorise for the purposes of disclosing information held on the register was dealt with in Clause 22. As a result of representations made in the other place, that clause was confined in its scope to the provision of information to public authorities. I seek to insert the same qualification in Clause 20. It is inappropriate for the Secretary of State to be able to impart confidential information held on an individual in the register other than to a public authority for the purposes set out in this series of clauses. I hope that the Government will be minded to do here what they did in the later clause.
	I should have said that I shall also advance Amendment No. 211A, which was tabled late; I apologise for that. It seeks to confine the purposes for which the information can be disclosed to three paragraphs in Section 17(2) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. As noble Lords know, Clause 20 is limited in scope to classes of information which may be disclosed under that section; that is, Section 17 of the 2001 anti-terrorism Act. It would be proper of me briefly to refer to this section because some noble Lords will recall that there was a great deal of almost agonised debate over the Bill, in particular over Clause 17. Much comment was made at the time about the fact that the disclosure of information powers conferred under that clause were not confined to anti-terrorist activities at all. When it was debated here, restrictions to the clause were agreed. However, they were overturned in the other place and not restored in this House.
	For the benefit of noble Lords, Section 17(2)(a) to (d) can briefly be described thus. Paragraph (a) allows information to be disclosed for the purposes of any criminal investigation here or abroad; paragraph (b) for the purposes of any criminal proceedings here or abroad; paragraph (c) for the purposes of the initiation or ending of investigations or proceedings; and paragraph (d)—which is the paragraph I seek to have excluded by my Amendment No. 211A—for the purposes of,
	"facilitating a determination of whether any such investigation or proceedings should be initiated or brought to an end".
	So, in an extreme case, if my Amendments Nos. 210ZA and 211A are not accepted, under Clause 20 the Secretary of State will be entitled to reveal information to an individual contemplating the bringing of proceedings, here or abroad, in circumstances where, because there is no limitation on its seriousness, the crime concerned can be a minor matter.
	I emphasise that Section 17(2)(d) allows disclosure where the person concerned may be at the point of deciding whether or not to commence investigations. Given that there is no restriction on the type of crime to which it may relate, and given that it is not confined to a public authority but extends to individuals, it seems wholly inappropriate that this power should be allowed in the way proposed. For example, if I was contemplating a private prosecution in respect of, say, damage to my property by my neighbour, Clause 20 would, on the face of it, allow me to apply to the Secretary of State for the revelation of information on the registry entry of my neighbour as a preliminary to prosecuting. It goes way, way too far and I hope that the Government will recognise the Committee's general concern about Clause 20 as it stands and respond favourably to the amendments.
	Of my other two amendments in the group, one is a wording amendment. I do not propose to enlarge upon what is contained in Amendment No. 211 because it is a minor matter. The fourth amendment in the group, Amendment No. 213A, seeks to insert into Clause 20 a proportionality requirement so that, in disclosing information, the Secretary of State would have to be satisfied that the disclosure was proportionate to what was sought to be achieved by it. It may be that the Minister will be able to say categorically that that inclusion in the clause is unnecessary because of the import of the principle of proportionality under the Human Rights Act. If she can say that on the record, categorically and with no ifs or buts, I should be minded to withdraw the amendment.
	That is all I have to say on the four amendments in the group that I am now moving. I beg to move.

The Countess of Mar: I remind the noble Lord that he is moving the first amendment and speaking to the rest for the moment.

Baroness Seccombe: The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, made some interesting points in regard to his two starred amendments, Amendments Nos. 210ZA and 211A. We look forward to hearing the Minister's reply. However, the most significant amendment in the group is Amendment No. 213A, which puts in place a test of proportionality into the Secretary of State's use of these powers. I agree that, if we are to have this Bill, the powers should not go beyond the stated claims for which they are being invoked.
	I also strongly agree that a test as to whether the disclosure of information is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved will help balance the need for individual privacy and freedoms versus national security. It helps make any decision both accountable and dependable from the start. As ever, we should fight to maintain that the burden of proof in our country is one of innocent until proven guilty rather than the other way round.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, will feel that his virtue and persistence will have its own rewards in relation to these amendments. Amendment No. 211 suggests a drafting change to Clause 20(2). We do not think the amendment changes the sense of the clause but on this occasion I am happy to accommodate the noble Lord's suggestion. I will therefore undertake to return to the House at Report with a government amendment that reflects the suggestion made by the noble Lord. The same formulation appears in subsection (3) and for the sake of consistency I will deal with that as well.
	Clause 20 sets out the relationship between the Identity Cards Bill and certain disclosure provisions under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001; specifically how information from the register could be provided without consent for purposes set out in Section 17 of that Act. We have discussed this in part already, but Section 17 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was, as the noble Lord knows, enacted to ensure that public authorities could disclose information that is subject to statutory restriction on disclosure for the purposes of a criminal investigation or criminal proceedings.
	Clause 20 of the Identity Cards Bill ensures that information from the register can be provided without consent for the purposes specified in Section 17(2) (a) to (d) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, provided that the rules set out in and made under Clause 23 of the Identity Cards Bill apply and comply with it.
	Amendment No. 210ZA would have the effect that the Secretary of State could disclose information from the register under Clause 20 only to a public authority rather than a person. From the import of what the noble Lord said, I take it that he is really concerned that private prosecutors and private prosecutions could not be facilitated through these provisions. That is what he is really getting at. However, Amendment No. 210ZA cannot be accepted because a public authority is defined in Clause 43 by reference to the Human Rights Act. This definition would exclude prosecuting authorities overseas and would mean that the new agency would have no power to provide information to these bodies. I believe that it is right that the new agency should be able to disclose information to prosecuting authorities overseas in certain specified circumstances. We are happy, however, to give a commitment to excluding the provision of information to individuals conducting private prosecutions under the regulations under Clause 23. We never intended private prosecutors to take advantage of these provisions, so we are happy to make that crystal clear. I thank the noble Lord for the amendment that highlights the difficulty and enables us to close the gap.
	So the noble Lord has two strikes against three so far. With Amendment No. 213A, we may have a hat trick, because what the noble Lord seeks from me is an unequivocal statement about proportionality. I assure him that the requirement to act proportionately in providing information will apply automatically by virtue of the Data Protection and Human Rights Acts. Therefore, it is not necessary to restate it here. Stating it in Clause 20 alone might suggest that there was no need to act proportionately when providing information under the other powers in the Bill. I know that that is not what the noble Lord or the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, want; they want me to make my full and frank disclosure, which I am very happy to do. Structural safeguards will be built into the scheme to ensure proportionality; we spoke about them earlier in Committee. I refer to the accreditation system, the differentiation that we are going to have and all the different agencies, for all the reasons that I have already given. I hope that noble Lords would not want me to repeat all that.
	I hope that the noble Lord will be delighted to withdraw his amendment on the basis that he has succeeded in every respect.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the Minister and am content to withdraw on that basis. I would be grateful if she could confirm with regard to the amendment to Clause 20(1)—the nub of which, as she reasonably put it, is that private prosecutions should not be able to use the provision—that there is a power in the Bill for the Secretary of State to make that clear and that nobody could rely on that subsection over and against a confining regulation.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I believe that that is the case, but I assure the noble Lord that, as it is our intent that private prosecutions should not flow from the provision, we will look at it with parliamentary counsel to ensure that the provisions comply when read together.
	I did not respond to Amendment No. 211A. The noble Lord said that he would not speak to it because it was a technical drafting amendment, so I was not sure whether he wanted me to respond so that I could assure him that all was well, or whether he was simply accepting that anyway and did not intend to press the amendment.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: No, I am sorry if I did not make myself clear. I intended to speak to Amendment No. 211A, which would restrict Clause 17(2) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 to paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), but not (d). To leave in paragraph (d) would open the doors of disclosure too wide, because paragraph (d) is about the most universal entrée that you could imagine. It says that you can have disclosure for,
	"the purpose of facilitating a determination of whether any such investigation or proceedings should be initiated".
	That is way beyond the pale, and I hope that the Government are not interested in that pre-consideration as an excuse for getting into the confidential information.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: In that case, the noble Lord will not get a clean sweep, which I believed we might have succeeded in giving him. Amendment No. 211A would remove the power to provide information from the register for the purpose of facilitating a determination of whether criminal investigations or criminal proceedings should be initiated or brought to an end in the United Kingdom or elsewhere. We do not believe that that is right.
	In our view that it is necessary to retain the power to provide information under Section 17(2)(d) of the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001. For example, if a foreign prosecuting authority has arrested a British citizen on suspicion of an offence but our British citizen maintains that he was still in the UK when the offence took place, if information from the register would prove that he was indeed within the UK on the date in question, surely we would want to provide that information to the authority holding him in order to effect his release.
	That situation is not covered by Section 17(2)(d) because until the authority abroad knows whether the alibi is genuine, it cannot decide whether to initiate proceedings or, if they have already begun, to bring them to an end. The measure has a practical and not insignificant purpose.
	I take up a point made earlier—Clause 20(1)(b) is expressly subject to compliance with regulations under Clause 23. It is not covered by Section 17(2)(c). I have already explained why Section 17(2)(d) is needed.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful for those comments. As the noble Baroness was speaking I reflected whether, as regards the example she gave of a British citizen being accused of doing something abroad on a day he was in this country, the information in this country could be used to rebut the accusation. Would not that be paragraph 9 information, which is specifically excluded from the purview of Clause 20(2)? The information regarding someone being here on 20 December rather than in Calais is likely to be paragraph 9 information, which comprises an audit trail of the person's use of the card. I do not see how else it would be provided.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Under Clause 20(4), paragraph 9 information is available in the case of serious crime.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: So the information could be provided in a murder case, but in one of the cases the noble Baroness mentioned before we had our much needed break, it would not be provided. It is a case of sometimes being given the information but not always. I shall be happy to withdraw the amendment. I shall read carefully what the noble Baroness said. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 210A to 213A not moved.]
	Clause 20 agreed to.
	Clause 21 [Correcting inaccurate or incomplete information]:

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 214:
	Page 19, line 23, at end insert—
	"( ) Where subsection (2) applies, the Secretary of State shall notify the individual in writing that he has taken action under that subsection within 30 days of doing so."

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I beg to move Amendment No. 214 standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell.
	Clause 21 will allow the Secretary of State to tell somebody who is not the subject of the information that something recorded about an individual is inaccurate or incomplete; and it will allow him to tell that unspecified third party that the information on the register is inaccurate or incomplete without even letting the subject of the information himself or herself know either that the information is inaccurate or incomplete or that the Secretary of State has told somebody else that the information is inaccurate or incomplete. Why should this be so? We say that the Secretary of State should notify the person who is the subject of the information in writing that he has taken such action within 30 days of taking that action. The period of 30 days has been plucked out of the air as a reasonable one. If the Government propose another more reasonable period, I could be persuaded to accept it.
	If the Government are not minded to look kindly on my amendment—and something tells me that they may not—they should explain what kind of information may be held on the register about me that is likely to be inaccurate or incomplete and which it would be in the public interest that I should not know about.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Baroness has kindly explained her amendment, which she has described perfectly well. I shall try to explain why we think the clause should stand as it is.
	The clause is specifically drafted to allow the Secretary of State to notify the person or organisation who provided the information as part of the identity-checking process if any subsequent inaccuracies or omissions were discovered in the information they had supplied. This will enable us, in circumstances where an organisation has provided information we believe is inaccurate or incomplete, to alert that organisation to that fact. As a result, we can help ensure that information held by other organisations is accurate, which will assist us in our fight against identity fraud by ensuring that those who try to avoid identification by using slightly different details will find it harder to do so.
	In order to comply with the aspect of the first data protection principle that requires that information be processed fairly, the Secretary of State will have to notify data subjects of, among other things, the purposes for which data will be processed. In practice, that will mean that at the outset, probably on the application form, an explanation will be given of the power to carry out cross-checks under Clause 21. However, the Data Protection Act, unlike the proposed amendment, does not oblige the Secretary of State to give notification of each occasion on which those powers are used. There are good reasons why we consider that it would not be appropriate to place the Secretary of State under such an obligation.
	In most cases, when processing an application form, the Secretary of State is likely to have the most recent and most accurate information about an individual. Where a discrepancy arises between that information and the information held on another database, that other database may well be out of date. It would then be a matter for the organisation holding that data to consider amending its records or making further inquiries of the individual. At that point, therefore, there is a good chance that the individual will be contacted.
	It is possible that the Secretary of State may have reason to believe that the information on the application form is inaccurate, and that data held by other organisations is correct. In those circumstances, it will be open to the Secretary of State to contact the individual concerned in order to try and clear up the discrepancy. A legal obligation to notify the data subject every time a cross-check is carried out, even where no discrepancy is revealed, would involve, I would argue, a disproportionate investment of time and cost on the resource.
	As we have outlined, where discrepancies arise, in practice, the data subject is likely to be contacted by one or other data controller. However, in some cases, to oblige the Secretary of State to notify the individual would be entirely inappropriate. It is quite possible that the reporting of inconsistencies may form part of an investigation of fraud. I am sure noble Lords would agree that in such cases as these we would not wish to alert that individual to the fact that their fraudulent activities were being investigated.
	Furthermore, this power is limited to validation of information that is, or could be, held on the register. There is no scope for it to be used in a way that would be surprising, or that would involve anything other than the usual identity information. I hope this explanation satisfies the noble Baroness, and I invite her to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Crickhowell: I have attached my name to this amendment. I listened to the Minister with care. It seemed to me that he only came to a good point right at the end, when he referred to fraud. I personally would find it perfectly acceptable if he were to come back with a redrafted amendment that covered that point, which seemed to be legitimate. None of the other arguments seemed to hold water at all. At one point, I think he said that it would be unreasonable if the department had to provide information every time something was checked, but I do not think that is what our amendment says. We are dealing with where the information is incorrect.
	I cannot see why the Government should not carry out that simple task. Every time I ring up a financial or commercial organisation nowadays I have to listen to an endless telephone message at my expense, telling me what my rights and obligations are, that I will be given any information that is necessary for my good and that I must provide information that the organisation or the regulator thinks is necessary for my good. It seems that those requirements have gone too far—certainly the need to hear such messages every time I make a telephone call, having pressed about 20 buttons to get that far.
	We are asking only that the department inform the individual where there has been a change because the record was incorrect. That is such an obvious and natural requirement that I am astonished that the Minister should challenge it. I urge him to come forward with a revised amendment that covers the legitimate point he made about circumstances in which fraud or some other crime has been revealed, but where, if an inaccurate fact has been recorded about an ordinary citizen, the citizen should be told that the change has been made.

Lord Selsdon: I had not intended to intervene, but people like me who have been involved in the information and research industry for a large part of our lives, and had to search and organise data when the Holorith system broke down with a knitting needle put through the punch-holes, used to say that the main problem was the technology. Now the technology is so fast that the main problem is the individual. It is not difficult, looking at the amount of information and the options that come in, to calculate—there is a formula that I have not brought with me—that effectively one in 11 of all the forms filled in will be inaccurate. When people at the other end put that data into the machine, depending on the time of the day—it has a big impact; the early morning, Friday afternoons and Monday mornings are not a suitable time—there may be inaccuracies. If you work out the compound factor, you may well end up with 25 per cent inaccuracies.
	That will be put down either to HE, human error, or ME, machine error, or as some people have said occasionally—and I do not wish to use the words—"BM", which depends on the attitude of the person there, who may not feel in a particularly good mood. It is right that people should be allowed to know when there has been a mistake. However, we must consider the human content and the amount of labour required to make such corrections, when no one will ever get a direct telephone answer, is enormous.
	Worse than that, the position becomes very one-sided. As noble Lords know, you may be rung up by someone who says he is an official but who has been in touch with one of the websites that enables people to obtain a false ID card that permits them to drink in a pub when they are only 14. We have a problem of credibility. The Government should look at the total cost of all this and the bureaucracy that is compounded by good intentions—and we know that the road to somewhere is paved with good intentions.
	Have the Government thought about how much all the checking and counter-checking would cost and in particular whether the privacy and freedom of the individual is being jeopardised? The individual will not know who is at the other end of the telephone, therefore surely every official who is communicating with a private citizen should have a name, rank and number that could be checked. I am making a mountain out of an enormous molehill. Never mind; the bureaucratic cost needs to be thought about.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The two noble Lords should have a meeting after this and perhaps thrash out the matter between them. On the one hand, the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, seems to want us to provide information on every single occasion to those affected by misinformation, which is in line with the amendment, while on the other hand the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, is rightly concerned with the cost of cross-checking. The Government are trying to provide a proportionate way through and, as I have explained carefully, there will be circumstances when it would be entirely inappropriate, silly and foolish, in an investigation into, say, major fraud, to tip off the person to whom the information relates that checks were being undertaken, because that would undermine the investigation.
	Fraud is the most obvious example, but there may be other reasons—for example, national security, continuing criminal investigations, or simply impracticality. The Data Protection Act provides a regime for when data processing of this nature occurs. As we have said on many occasions, it is not appropriate to replicate all the requirements and the exceptions to them here. Any significant discrepancy is, in practice, almost certain to be taken up with the person concerned, but it would not be right to make it an absolute requirement. That is why the amendment, for understandable reasons in terms of drawing out this debate, has been moved. I invite the noble Baroness to reconsider her amendment and withdraw it.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: What if the register itself made a mistake? What if, for example, it matched a fingerprint check wrongly and realised afterwards that there had been a bog-up, with potentially serious consequences for the individual whose fingerprints had been wrongly identified? A foreign jurisdiction—one of the things that we were talking about a few minutes ago—might conceivably be involved. Is there any power on the part of the registrar to inform or warn the individual who might be prejudiced in that way? If not, there surely should be.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I would have assumed—I may be wrong—that such a discrepancy would be deemed significant. As I said earlier, it would be the sort of thing that you would obviously want to take up with the person concerned. My understanding of the situation is that the Data Protection Act itself provides for circumstances like those, so it would be only right that that person was advised and told. We owe it to those who are part of the whole scheme to ensure that they are told when those things happen.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The noble Baroness will want to be sure that there is the power to do that; this is a technical Bill, and we have to be sure that it is there.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: As I said, the Data Protection Act itself provides a regime that covers circumstances like this.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: The noble Lord's closing remarks do not quite cover the whole intent behind the amendment. As my noble friend Lord Crickhowell pointed out, it is certainly not the intention of the amendment to say that every cross-check that takes place in the system be notified to an individual. I really sought to have some reassurance about how there could be a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that an innocent person—not a fraudster, drug smuggler or potential terrorist—might not be caught up in the perpetuation of incorrect information held on them because no one bothered to tell them about it.
	I say that against the background of other debates that we have had tonight, from which it is clear that the Government will use private databases as a way of verifying information. The Government referred to credit reference agencies and Tesco, but the agencies in particular could have inaccurate information. We have all read of cases in which people find themselves denied a credit rating. They are perfectly honourable people, but the wrong address has been ascribed to their name. We know that those kind of errors are perpetuated.
	At the beginning of the Minister's kind and careful response, in trying to reassure me he said that there was a good chance that the innocent person would be contacted. By the end, he was saying that it was almost certain. That is the problem; there is that divergence even in his answer. My concern is that rigour and good practice in administration tend to follow only on the duty to do something. Certainly, this was a probing amendment at this stage of the Bill, let alone this stage of the night. I will look carefully at his answer, particularly as he is talking about the Data Protection Act, which I find may have some problems in terms of how it relates to the Bill. I will think carefully about it before deciding whether there is any need to bring the amendment back on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 21 agreed to.
	Clause 22 [Power to authorise provision of information in other circumstances]:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: moved Amendment No. 215:
	Page 20, line 11, at end insert—
	"( ) Details of all authorisations given under this section shall be recorded in the Register entry of the individual concerned and retained on the Register for not less than 10 years."

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Amendment No. 215 relates to Clause 22, which is described as the power to authorise provision of information in other circumstances. Again, I hope that my amendment is self-explanatory. It would require details of all authorisations given under this clause—this is the easy sweeping-up clause that entitles the Secretary of State on a wide front to provide public authorities with information—to be recorded in the register entry of the individual concerned and to be retained on the register for not less than 10 years. Again, this amendment may be superfluous but it would at least be good to have it clarified. I look forward to the Minister's response. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I hope that I will be able to reassure the noble Lord. We believe that Clause 22 is necessary to ensure that the identity card scheme retains the flexibility to adapt to different situations in the future where it would be in the public interest for information to be provided to a public authority which is not a government department and so cannot be specified under Clause 19. We have already discussed the concerns relating to Clause 22—that is, the power, the provision of information and so on—and I shall not go through all that again, but perhaps I may give noble Lords an example.
	The power might be used to provide photographs or biometric information to the emergency services in order to identify victims of major incidents. At some point in the future, it might also be desirable to provide information from the register to local authorities to help to identify individuals so as to assist with fraud investigation. Other public bodies that are not government departments may also have a legitimate need to be provided with information from the register. For example, the General Register Office for England and Wales may need to be provided with information in connection with its responsibilities for the registration of births, marriages and deaths. It is not a government department and so could be provided with information only if specified in regulations under Clause 22.
	I accept that the power in Clause 22 to provide information is open-ended in the way that the noble Lord has suggested. However, it is already subject to regulations made under the affirmative order-making procedure, so no public authority could be provided with any information under Clause 22 unless it had already been specified in regulations made with parliamentary approval in both Houses.
	In addition, on each separate occasion that information from the register is provided to a public authority authorised to receive it under Clause 22, oversight arrangements would also apply, including the rules for providing information to be established under Clause 23. In addition, the national identity scheme commissioner would oversee the use of this power to provide information under Clause 22.
	Clause 22 was amended following discussion on the previous Identity Cards Bill introduced in the last parliamentary Session so that the only bodies that can be provided with information by being named in an order under Clause 22 are public authorities for the purposes of the Human Rights Act. It also excludes the provision of information falling within paragraph 9 of Schedule 1, which is the audit log of when an individual's register entry has been provided.
	So, in accepting the force of the arguments about affirmative resolutions, one sees how we get a better purchase on how these provisions will be used. There will of course already be an audit log of every occasion when information is provided under Clause 22, as we have discussed. However, I am not convinced that there is a case for having to retain this sort of information for at least 10 years in every case.
	We believe that there are already sufficient safeguards in the Data Protection Act in relation to the retention of personal data and that those should be retained for as long as it is necessary rather than any set minimum period. The legislation before us needs to allow for the possibility that information can be provided in the future to public authorities. I understand the noble Lord's concerns. We have been able to address those concerns and I can reassure your Lordships that these provisions provide the rigour that the noble Lord seeks.

Lord Selsdon: The noble Baroness kindly mentioned one of my favourite subjects which is emergency services and the data available to them, particularly as in a few years' time we will have Galileo and all forms of GPS for communication. An identity base could be very helpful to the individual—though I oppose it in principle for others. For example, it could be useful for identifying blood groups, those who need particular medicines and those who suffer from particular diseases. Within that field no individual would feel concerned about making that data available. I had thought of raising this issue on Report. The Minister may consider a particular section for the emergency services where people could voluntarily provide life-saving data that could be available in the event of, say, a car crash or major disaster. Individuals could be identified and the relevant emergency or health data would be available.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, will know from our earlier debates that, provided those areas have been prescribed in an order—we have gone through how that will happen—it will be possible for people voluntarily to place additional information on the register that may assist in that regard. We are not minded to compel that, but if individuals wish to have that kind of data held on their records, and if both Houses decide that that should be added, we have a vehicle through which that could be done. The noble Lord is right to emphasise, as he has on a number of occasions, the advantages that the emergency services may derive from that. The noble Baroness talked about the provisions that we introduced at the time of the tsunami when we needed an efficient and effective way of providing succour to people in quite dire circumstances. If we have the technology and the ability to do that, it is incumbent on us to do what we can to reduce the distress that occurs in those kinds of situations.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the Minister for her response. My concerns are largely assuaged. I confirm my understanding of what she has said. She used the phrase "traffic data"—that the authorisations given under this clause would form part of the traffic data that would be logged on an individual's register entry. I know that when I use my card for verification of my identity in a shop or wherever, that is logged on my entry in the register and is accessible under paragraph 9 of Schedule 1. However, I am not perfectly certain that the authorisations are of that ilk and will be captured, albeit not for the 10-year period. Perhaps the noble Baroness could confirm that.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: As I have said already, there will be an audit log which will log every occasion when information is provided under Clause 22, which will be in line with paragraph 9 of Schedule 1.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful for that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 216 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	Clause 22 agreed to.

Lord Lucas: moved Amendment No. 216A:
	After Clause 22, insert the following new clause—
	"POWER TO AUTHORISE PROVISION OF INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES
	In a case where there is no authorisation under sections 19 to 22 for the provision of information, the Secretary of State may nevertheless, without any individual's consent, provide a dissociated complete set or random sample of information recorded in the Register under section 1(7)(e) for the purposes of research."

Lord Lucas: When the register is up and running, it will potentially be an extremely important source of information for all kinds of research purposes. We will have a fairly complete log of people's movements around the UK. We will also have a much better picture of what the local population of the UK is at any particular time than is provided by rather out of date and occasional censuses. If you are trying to look at the pattern of provision in an area or, indeed, the pattern of take-up of any other service in an area, this is going to be an extremely important data resource—either by itself, or in conjunction with other databases which will then be linked with it.
	I do not expect—and it would not be usual—for data to be released which would allow individuals to be identified, which is the point of my use of the word "dissociated". I do not lay any particular claim to the accuracy of the wording of this. If there is a prohibition on providing data under any circumstances from the register for research purposes, which is the way I read the Bill at the moment, then we are going to miss an enormous opportunity for understanding our island better and providing services better.
	At the end of the day, the Government, wonderful though they are, do not have all the best researchers and statisticians. Going back to my own history, that was one of the tragedies of the BSE episode: the Ministry of Agriculture had some very good statisticians but they just never asked the right questions. When we eventually released the data, it took about two months for Imperial College to tell us what had been happening. They were looking at it a different way. There were fresh minds on the same data. Even the limited data which will be held here, particularly under Schedule 1(1), is going to be extremely valuable. It is important that that should be available to genuine researchers.
	The other aspect is Schedule 1(2). If you are seeking to defend someone in a court case against the matching of their face with an image taken by a high-resolution camera, then you are going to need to be able to understand the technicalities of that matching: how it works, under what circumstances it might be right or wrong, and what the degrees of error are. We have all had enough cases recently of spurious statistics being quoted by "experts" as to likelihoods and matching, and the consequences of that for families, to know that these things can go horribly wrong. Unless this database is released, it will be impossible to do fundamental research against it as to the accuracy of matching and the circumstances under which a match might be regarded as absolutely valid or doubtful.
	There is no reason why it should be associated with any individuals for this purpose. All you need do is provide the biometrics, completely dissociated from any particular person, or indeed dissociated from each other. You would still have just as valid a database for research. It is very important that this tool should be available to the defence because, after all, the prosecution will have it. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Can I be clear that this amendment applies only to the provision of dissociated information or random information with regard to Clause 1(7)(e)?

Lord Lucas: Possibly it does, in the way it is written, although that was not the way I intended it. I intended it to apply to the whole register.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Sadly, it does not. I was getting quite excited when I thought it did, and then the noble Lord came winging in on this particular provision and I got depressed. Wearing my hat as chancellor of the University of Essex, I can see that there is a substantial utility to be had. I would have thought that the spirit of this amendment is extremely beneficial. Maybe this is something that the Government could think about. There obviously needs to be a framework around it, some sort of protocol, which would apply to all academic applicants for information. It is too good a body of information to leave solely for the purposes in Clause 1. I wholly support it.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Like the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, I got excited by my noble friend's amendment and was disappointed that it did not go quite as far as I had originally hoped. My noble friend has tried to resolve the conundrum that I posed earlier in Committee. I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, recalls it. It was he who answered my query about whether this body of information could properly be used in some way for research purposes. My noble friend has found the phraseology about information being "dissociated" so that there is no breaching of confidentiality. My amendment asked what would happen after 100 years and whether there was a way in which information could be revealed for the purposes of research. I quoted, for example, genealogical research, but there is a wider issue than that. My noble friend Lord Lucas has raised a very important issue.
	I have to say that when the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, gave, as ever, one of his very kindly responses, having led me up the garden path, he dumped me at the end of it. He said, "What a good idea", and then, "Obviously this is something that could perhaps happen in the future". Then, when I popped up again and asked where the provision was in the Bill, he said, "Ah, well, there would have to be further primary legislation". My noble friend has found a way of trying to introduce that permissiveness into the Bill. I hope that he will be encouraged by the Government to look at his drafting so that the provision might apply more widely than just to data in Clause 1(7)(e).

The Earl of Northesk: My noble friend's amendment undoubtedly has considerable potentially beneficial effects. Nevertheless, I would counsel a degree of caution. If we think back to the previous incarnation of ID cards in this country, one of the great criticisms that they attracted in the end was that they were subject to a great deal of function creep. With my noble friend's amendment, we potentially run the risk of empowering function creep. I insert that note of caution.

Lord Selsdon: In my research days, the census was absolutely critical. I got an awful shock when we found that an ancient census which was then published attracted so much information and demand. But I would not like the Government to think that the amendment proposed by my noble friend would give them a right to start charging for information in order to offset the very substantial costs that would be incurred, because we will very quickly find that the information then has to determine the sociological background of the individual and other information related to him such as his colour, creed, race, religion and whether he is A, B, C1, C2, D or E. But my noble friend has made a valid point. The problem is how one can screen out what might be private information in the information that could be in the public domain and not just in the domain of government pollsters.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: We agree that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has raised a very interesting point. I do not think that he suggests that his amendment is perfect in form. He simply tabled it to give us an opportunity to have an interesting debate, which we have had. The noble Lord will know that the provision of anonymised biometric data for research purposes is nothing new. We have done that before. For instance, when the police were developing the Ident1 fingerprint system, they used data from the existing National Automated Fingerprint Identification System to test the technology.
	However, as the noble Lord will know, his amendment would provide no safeguards about who could receive the information without consent, as it does not specify who the information could be supplied to. But we think that there is a way through this. It is foreseeable that the identity cards programme could wish to provide completely anonymised biometric data to research bodies, such as universities or the National Physical Laboratory, which has conducted biometric tests for the Home Office in the past. It is only prudent to ensure that our biometric technology remains as secure as possible by keeping up with the latest advances. There is already power under Clause 22 to provide information to public authorities which would allow us to provide anonymised information to our intended research bodies.
	This information would be subject to the specific safeguards provided by Clause 23. Any regulations relating to the provision of such information would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. So, in response to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, and the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, it is important that we do any research in a very safe and secure way.
	As regards the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, on race, colour, creed, social class and so on, the noble Lord knows that they cannot be recorded in the register. So I am afraid that research ambitions in that regard could not be met by anything contained in the register. But there is other information, and the noble Baroness supported it, which we could probably do, and we could do it safely. I hope that we have found a way through to satisfy the noble Baroness because she made a very good point. We looked at the Bill and I am so pleased that we have been able to do so.

Lord Lucas: I am delighted by that reply. The noble Baroness has basically confirmed that universities can have the data they need, so long as they are provided in proper form. That seems to me to be entirely appropriate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 23 [Rules for providing information without individual's consent]:

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: moved Amendment No. 217:
	Page 20, line 33, leave out paragraph (c).

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: Amendment No. 217 seeks to delete subsection (3)(c) from Clause 23. Amendments Nos. 218 and 219 are grouped with it. The Explanatory Notes state that Clause 23 sets out the rules by which the Secretary of State may be authorised to give out information without the consent of the individual who is the subject of that information. That has formed the backcloth to our debates. But, in practice, Clause 23 is highly permissive in the scope of the powers it hands to the Secretary of State.
	The clause gives the merest hint of what may follow by regulation, but gives no hard detail or justification. There may be some benefits in that, in allowing some flexibility. We had some examples in our previous debate on where we may wish to see the Government having flexibility.
	Subsections (2) to (4) allow the Secretary of State to make regulations imposing requirements, such as specifying the person or persons who may make any request for information and how it is to be made and authorised before any information is provided under Clauses 19 to 22. Within that, subsection (3)(c) really is the vaguest of the vague. It allows regulations to be made that may include,
	"provision imposing other requirements as to the manner in which such applications must be made".
	When the matter was debated in another place, my honourable friend Mr Garnier commented that it was unfortunate they had not had a fuller opportunity to debate and get a response from the Minister; hence, I brought it here in a purely probing manner today to enable the Minister to make a full response. I beg to move.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I have the second amendment in the group, Amendment No. 218. If the noble Baroness's amendment is the vaguest of the vague, mine deals with a clause that is the obscurest of the obscure. Quite what to make of it I know not, which is why I have sought its deletion. It occurs to me that the meaning may relate to the amendment which the Government have agreed to accept to Clause 20(1), where the Government have agreed that the Secretary of State cannot, without an individual's consent, provide information to an individual for the purposes of bringing a prosecution.
	What is particularly obscure in Clause 23(4)(a) is the section in brackets. Paragraph (a) reads,
	"that that person (where not specified in sections 19 to 22) and the applicant for the information (where different) are for the time being approved by the Secretary of State in the prescribed manner".
	It would be helpful for the Committee to know what person we are talking about. Given that, as I understand it, Clause 23 is an elucidation and enlargement of the provisions of Clauses 19 to 22 and does not provide new rights of access to information, I do not quite understand how the person in subsection (4)(a) can be described as one not specified in Clauses 19 to 24. I beg to move.

The Earl of Northesk: I speak to Amendment No. 219, which would insert the new clause printed on the Marshalled List. As our debates have already revealed, Clauses 11 and 19 to 23 envisage widespread cross-pollination of data between a national identity register and a host of other databases currently in operation across government. Indeed, it is worth noting that the propositions of data sharing and data matching have been a persistent theme of the current Administration. As the Performance and Innovation Unit's publication of 2002—Privacy and Data-Sharing—puts it,
	"The ability of the public sector to deliver high quality services, develop well-targeted policies and ensure efficient government depends on the effective use of knowledge and information—including personal information about citizens (such as health records, tax returns, welfare benefits, law enforcement records, driving licence information, and so on).
	It continues:
	"This requires more joined-up approaches to the use of personal data across organisations".
	Moreover, the statute book is groaning under the weight of successive legislation aimed essentially at creating a more permissive regime for data sharing—as with, for example, the Children Act 2004, which has been translated into the recently announced information sharing index, the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 and the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill.
	In other words, the prevalence of legislative provision in this area is pervasive. I understand the rationale for the data sharing envisaged in the Bill. On the face of it, it could serve at least two potentially beneficial functions: more efficient and effective public service provision and verification of the information held on the register. In the context of the scheme, both of those could be deemed to be desirable although, on the latter, there is the real risk, to which my noble friend Lady Anelay referred earlier: that the national identity register will fall prey to cross-infection of inaccurate and corrupt data from other databases. For example, it was revealed last year that the DVLA data set is only 40 per cent accurate.
	Be that as it may, however attractive the concept of data sharing and whatever its potential benefits—the Government agree with this—it needs to be conducted within the context of human rights and data protection legislation. I again refer to the PIU report. It states:
	"there are signs that public concern about privacy is on the rise—both in the public and private sectors".
	Rightly, the report also states:
	"While there is huge potential to make better use of personal data to deliver benefits to the public . . . this will only be realised if the public trusts the way the public sector handles its personal information—which means meeting their rights and legitimate expectations or the protection of personal privacy".
	According to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Bill does not appear to satisfy that criterion of public trust. Its report states:
	"a number of provisions of the Bill could result in disclosure of information in a way that disproportionately interferes with private life in violation of Article 8".
	In particular, it observes that,
	"the majority of disclosures of information under the Bill are not made subject to the criterion of necessity".
	There is an additional point here. With so much data sloshing between the register and other government databases, there is a distinct possibility that virtual databases could be created. To that extent, it is wholly feasible that the register could have access—not hold, but have access—to sensitive data, as defined by the Data Protection Act. In other words, the Government's sincere intention that the register will not hold such information will, in practice, be pretty much meaningless.
	For my part, I acknowledge that statutory gateways for data sharing and data matching should exist. To echo comments from my noble friend Lord Lucas, we would be unwise to seek to prevent the inevitable. Rather, like my noble friend, I am much more concerned that we get the administrative detail of privacy rights correct.
	Here, in contrast to the drafting in the Bill and the Government's apparent strategic policy in this area, I favour the approach of Liberty. Albeit in a different context but, nevertheless, equally relevant here, it has commented:
	"The starting point for such consideration should be the presumption that each and every measure allowing for information sharing needs to be justified rather than the presumption that information sharing is an unqualified good to which exceptions must be justified".
	That seems to be sensible and appropriate.
	The new clause is intended to address all those concerns. It proposes that the Secretary of State draws up statutory guidelines in respect of the information disclosure provisions of the Bill, with the intention that these be enforceable in law. I have no doubt that the Minister will argue that such a proposition is unnecessary because the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act will apply to this Bill in any event. I regret to say that I cannot be quite so sanguine about the matter, nor am I wholly comforted by her responses to previous amendments.
	As I have indicated more than once during our debates, it is wholly feasible that, despite the Government's intentions, sensitive personal data will be accessible from the register, regardless of the provisions of the Data Protection Act. Moreover, there is a great deal of evidence that public authorities across the board are confused about what is and what is not permissible in this area. For example, a current statutory instrument from the DfES—the Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2005—envisages the retention of named personal data about children for as long as 20 years. It is difficult to see how that can be interpreted as being proportionate within the terms of the Data Protection Act. I apologise for taking some time to explain the new clause, but this is a complex area. Nevertheless, I sincerely believe that this new clause or something like it is necessary as a buttress to the Data Protection Act.

Lord Crickhowell: At this stage in our proceedings, I shall try to be brief. I am considerably attracted by the new clause proposed by my noble friend. If only it was accepted, many of the anxieties that I expressed, for example, when we debated Clause 19 about the extraordinary scope of the Secretary of State's powers, would be disarmed. My noble friend was pessimistic. He forecast that the Minister would say that this clause was unnecessary. If it was accepted, I think that my entire attitude to the Bill would change dramatically. It would be a breakthrough in our proceedings.
	This is the first moment in which we turn to the role of the commissioner. It is the first attempt to give real powers of intervention to the commissioner to ensure that we are not dealing with the untrammelled, uncontrolled power of the Secretary of State and the Government. Therefore, this is a very significant attempt. We will come later to some other suggestions about the role of the commissioner. But that it is important, there can be no doubt. To pick on two or three of the items covered, clearly, it is of crucial importance that we should be satisfied with procedures designed to ensure the accuracy and security of information disclosed. It has been quite clear from our debates that many of us have serious anxieties on that point. It is very important that we should have reassurance about the arrangements for the co-ordination of the disclosure of information. We have all made it clear that we are concerned about the rights of data subjects.
	When dealing with the security issue, it surely must be clear by now that the security function must be robust and resilient. It seems to me that this is the first moment in the Bill that we have a proposal that would give reassurance to many people who are anxious about this legislation and who genuinely fear that whatever the good intentions of government, the granting of unrestricted powers to governments, which cannot effectively be policed or where the advice can be brushed aside quite easily, is a very unwise procedure.
	With perhaps not much more optimism than my noble friend, but in the genuine belief that a clause of this kind and the provision of real powers to the commissioner would make a huge difference, I urge the Government to give careful consideration to the ideas being proposed in the amendment.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I would hate to disappoint either the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, or the noble Earl, Lord Northesk. If this would change entirely the noble Lord's attitude to the Bill, that is a powerful temptation. But I hope, without succumbing to that temptation, to be able to explain to his satisfaction why the Bill delivers that which the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, seeks, and that both noble Lords will feel better able to support these provisions. I know too that the noble Baroness has tabled Amendment No. 217 because my honourable friends did not have the opportunity to answer her honourable friends when this matter was raised in another place. I will take up her invitation to give as full an answer as I can at a quarter to 10 in order to make sure that she does not feel it necessary to bring the amendment back on Report.
	Clause 23(a) and (b) empower the Secretary of State to make regulations limiting the provision of information to circumstances in which an application has been made, and specifying the persons entitled to make such applications. Subsection (3)(c), which the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness would remove, enables the Secretary of State to impose other requirements as to the manner in which such applications must be made. It is therefore a safeguard which allows the Secretary of State to be more prescriptive about the form applications must take. For example, the power could be used by the Secretary of State to impose regulations stating that these applications must be made in writing. I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that it would be sensible to use the power in that way to ensure that there is a formal record of any request for provision of information. However, the effect of the amendment would be to remove the power to make such provision. I know from our earlier discussions that the noble Baroness wants such provisions to be available.
	This is a safeguard to ensure that a really rigorous process covering the provision of information without the consent of the individual is in place. The noble Earl, Lord Northesk, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, have both emphasised the importance of the administrative process and the need to ensure that it has an appropriately high degree of integrity.
	Amendment No. 218 would preclude the Secretary of State from making regulations that require the person to whom the information is being supplied and/or the applicant for the information, if different, to be approved by the Secretary of State. The power in Clause 24(4)(a) is needed to enable the Secretary of State to set up an accreditation scheme for the approval of persons to whom information may be provided. Again, this is an important safeguard. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, have both indicated that they are enthusiastic about an accreditation procedure because it provides the kind of important safeguard that jointly we want to see.
	Noble Lords have queried how information can be provided to someone not specified under Clauses 19 to 22 and how the applicant and recipient may be different. Subsection (5) allows for the provision of information to subordinates of those specified in Clauses 19 to 22. For example, Clause 19(2) allows for provision of information to the Director General of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, while subsection (3) allows for the provision of information to a chief officer of police. There is no need for the Secretary of State to accredit those individuals because they are named in the legislation. But regulations under Clause 23(5) may permit the Director General or the chief officer to authorise subordinates of a particular rank or status to receive information on their behalf. Subsection (4)(a) gives power to make regulations requiring those people to be accredited before information is provided. So that is why the accreditation and the delegation are important.
	Although the applicant for and the recipient of the information will normally be the same person it is possible that they may be different. For example, regulations under subsection (3)(b) may provide that applications for the provision of particularly sensitive information, such as paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 information, may be made only by very senior persons. But that senior person may authorise someone else in his command—for example, the officer in charge of a particular investigation into serious crime—to be provided with the information in accordance with regulations under subsection (5). The purpose of subsection (4)(a) is to ensure that whenever information is provided from the register the request has been made by an appropriate person and the information is given only to an appropriate person.
	Additionally, any regulations made under this clause are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. The noble Baroness wanted it; we have given it. This will ensure that Parliament has the chance to have a say on the regulations that will be proposed under this clause. So it all fits together.
	As to Amendment No. 219, I listened carefully to all that the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, said in moving his amendment. I understand the concerns he has expressed. I understand what his amendment is intended to do and the structure that the proposed new clause seeks to put on the face of the Bill, but I hope to persuade him that it is unnecessary. The Bill does not attempt to control what recipients of information can do with it. This is because what is lawful for them to do with it will depend on each recipient's own common law and statutory powers—for example, what the police can do with information received will depend on their common law powers, their powers under PACE and other police legislation.
	The Data Protection Act rights and duties as a data controller will apply to this information in the normal way, as will the Human Rights Act requirements of necessity and proportionality. It would not be appropriate for the Secretary of State to attempt to control or restate these matters in guidance under the Bill. So all of that applies.
	I agree with the noble Earl that both the Information Commissioner and the National Identity Scheme Commissioner will have a strong interest in the uses to which information from the register is put. The Information Commissioner's normal powers under the Data Protection Act apply to the database and to the uses of information from it. There is no attempt in the Bill to restrict, exclude or change them in any way. They remain as strong as they are expressed in the Act. The use made of information from the register is specifically included in the remit of the National Identity Scheme Commissioner by Clause 24(2)(c). We had an opportunity to discuss that earlier in Committee and I hope that I was able to reassure noble Lords in that regard.
	So, with those comprehensive reassurances, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, will feel she has had the answer deprived her honourable friends in the other place and that the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, and the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, will see that the structures we have put together are sound.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: In regard to my Amendment No. 218 to Clause 23(4)(a)—the Minister may not want to answer this here and now—the whole of Clause 23 is about Clauses 19 to 22. It is, if you like, subsidiary to those clauses and amplifies them.
	However, Clause 23 (4) states that:
	"The Secretary of State may by regulations make it a condition of providing information to a person".
	It continues,
	"(a) that that person (where not specified in sections 19 to 22)".
	What is still obscure to me is, if the person is not specified in Sections 19 to 22, how can that be consonant with the structure of the clause which is pendant to those sections? I am not expecting an answer off the cuff because these are deep matters, but I did not follow that bit.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: It is five minutes to ten o'clock. The answer will take a little time. I could do it now, but nobody would forgive me.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: I am sure that we are in a forgiving mood. Certainly, it would be churlish to pursue Amendment No. 217 any further. However much I may not like some of the provisions in the Bill, I am sure that the explanation given by the Minister is as full as I could reasonably expect. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment and indicate that it will not re-appear at Report.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 218 not moved.]
	Clause 23 agreed to.
	[Amendment No. 219 not moved.]

Lord Bassam of Brighton: After a good day's work, I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved accordingly, and on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House resumed.
	House adjourned at four minutes before ten o'clock.